Are You Aware What Is Required In An Internet Home Business?

By Muneer Al-Busaidi

Having a home based business opportunity has such a strong appeal that if you were to search for home business on the internet you find thousands of websites. It is actually possible to find every sort of opportunity imaginable from being a customer service agent to becoming a professional home stager. No matter your race, gender, culture or religion, the internet does not discriminate and you can find something that would suit you personally. At the end of the day, it just comes down to knowing what it is that you want!

Your first obstacle in the search for an internet home business is finding an interest. Once you have overcome this obstacle it is all about asking yourself various questions about what you are looking to achieve with this business. Asking questions about how much time you can spend on growing it, conflicts with your schedule, personal agenda or caring for your children? Once you fully comprehend these aspects, it is time to move into other areas of the business. Get familiar with tools that you will be utilizing during your internet career. Get a computer or laptop, an internet connection, and somewhere to work in peace.

Do you understand all that needs to be done, or should you be taking courses online at the same time in order to learn what to do? Many of the home based opportunities that you can do via the
internet will offer various courses that you can do in your own time as well as possible phone contact with a mentor who is experienced in this business. Let us not forget the possibility of learning online via books from your local library to increase overall knowledge of business in general.

Make sure you understand the income potential of what you choose to do. Will ends meet in your household once you undertake this path? As a general rule, it is important to save for three months to assist you in your everyday expenses and other basic needs. Try not to put yourself in situations where you can fall behind on payments or have to live of one dollar noodles for a month!

It is only once you have fully understood the requirement of your internet opportunity, and once the precautions have been made to begin your business in a well planned and thought out process, that you will find that you are prepared. You will experience the joys of earning from the comfort of your home and being truly independent from the hassles of an employer. Your time would be your own to manage, and you will comfort knowing that you do not need to sacrifice time with your family to pursue an indefinite future.

By following these outlined suggestions you can prevent otherwise unforeseen circumstances concerning your pay, your overall satisfaction and the like. Poor planning of the business has been attributed to the statistically 90% failure of home businesses in their first year. Preparing for the journey before you begin however is the simple solution and knowing what you know now, you can put your best foot forward and make the leap.

About The Author:

Muneer Al-Busaidi is a successful internet marketer and has found success with Success University. Learn more about this AS SEEN ON TV opportunity and development program by visiting: http://www.MoneyTimeSecurity.com

How To Succeed In Marketing On The Internet!

By Chandrasoma Perera

If you want to succeed in internet marketing you have to have the Never Give Up Attitude. You have to keep on trying and trying. You should be like rubber balls jump back when you fall and keep bouncing back after failing to get a sale through with a customer.

Internet Marketers are not the type who feels dejected after being rejected once by a customer. They know the art of coming back with a fresh alternate approach to get a YES every time they get a NO from a prospective customer. They possess the knack to analyze a rejection and amend, alter or change their approach accordingly and get the acceptance and finalize the
sale. In marketing many a sales is made after customer had said No. That is the real challenge for a marketer to change a NO from his prospective customer to a YES.

The ideal person who can get results is the one Who Would Not Dare to Go up To the Gate of the Heaven and Honk until the Door to heaven Opens for him!

That is the characteristic that is needed to make a sale. It is persistence at its best. It is the willingness to go beyond the barriers to get what you want and not stop until you get it. This stick-to- a-task attitude and the result oriented frame of mind is very essential to be a successful internet marketer. Of course, the internet marketer should be armed with all the related information available to provide to the customer who always want to know more and more like Oliver Twist asking for more. In the internet environment it is a situation that more
and more information on strengths and weaknesses of similar products from your competitors are readily available to the customers in the market. This make it more difficult to satisfy the customers and attract them to by from you.

That is why, in Internet business it is not easy to woo a customer. Many sales letters, email promotions, solo and classified advertisements are glanced at and deleted because people have less time today. Time has value. So, your efforts should be always to grab the attention of a prospective customer. After seeing an offer again and again many times only the customer think of giving attention to it or subscribe.

What you offer may be excellent but to get the customer attention you have to present it in an eye catching way to draw customer-instant-attention to make him look at it more than once and even prompt him to read it. That is where advertising comes in. Even then, since there are similar products, similar services competing for customer attention, you are required to put in to it a great deal of innovative thinking so the manner of presenting will make the difference in attracting customer attention.

The prospective customers may not read every word that appears on your advertisement, email or news letter. Therefore, it should be attention grabbing for the customer to glance through before deleting or setting it aside to see for a second time. This is why online marketing is not easy as many thinks. There are big timers, seasoned marketers who could afford to spend big dollars lavishly on skillfully created advertising presentations to grab the customers. They can do it but for you and me it is difficult and we have to keep on trying in an economically tight manner as our advertising budgets are limited.

In Internet Marketing there are many methods used to woo the customers like building your own list of subscribers and communicating to them on a regular basis till they get convinced to buy, sending emails to safe-lists, advertising online and off-line, article marketing, using blogs etc. With all these marketing approaches too it is still difficult to capture a prospective subscriber to complete a sale in the midst of sever competition online that prevail due to the openness and speedy ex-changeability of information etc in the internet.

So it is the one who has the will to win, persistence, courage and willingness to try, try, try and try again till the result is seen, who can succeed in Internet Marking Arena.

For an example of a site that attractively present products to catch the eye of customers visit: - http://www.chanano.com

About The Author:

The Author is Chandrasoma Perera who is the owner of http://chanano.com and http://guideonlinebiz.com and Chandrasoma writes regularly on wide variety of subjects. To
learn more about starting your own home based business earning six streams of income visit http://www.chanano.com

Reputation Management Tips

By Brick Marketing

Managing your company's reputation on the Internet is one of the many ancillary marketing strategies that have emerged from the explosive rise of search engine marketing over the last decade or so and is no small consideration for businesses of all sizes now and for the near future.

Why is reputation management relevant to your company?

The short answer: Reputation management matters because more and more people use information found online to influence their purchasing decisions. If someone searches for your company's name or one of your products only to find negative feedback on the first search results page, the sales opportunity is lost.

Remember the old adage about bad news traveling faster than good news? The Internet not only validates the truth in that statement, it accelerates it.

Because your company's reputation on the Web matters now more than ever, here are some reputation management tips to help you get started:

1. Determine your company's current reputation – Find out how your company is perceived online. Conduct searches using your company name and look for negative feedback on blogs, forums, and other online communities where people might leave feedback about your firm. Also think about subscribing to Google Alerts and other online services where you receive notice when new postings appear online containing the keywords and phrases you have chosen.

2. Issue press releases regularly – Use the power of well-written, newsworthy press releases to announce company anniversaries, new product launches, promotions, relocations, etc.

3. Build online profiles – Connect with your target audience through social media sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, and others. Social media sites are a great way to post positive information about your company. Make sure that your company name appears in the URL.

4. Register domains – Register domains with your company name whenever possible. If your preferred name is already taken, get creative and use variations to get your firm name somewhere in the domain name. Use the name in the content of the site. Write your site content to entice your viewers to visit other pages of the site.

5. Add sub-domains – If possible, register your URL with different suffixes like .net, .info, .biz, etc. Also see if site names like www.yourURLblog.com or www.your-URLblog.com and other variations are available.

6. Start a company blog – And update the blog with new content regularly. Blogs are inexpensive, very popular, and search engines love them. Blogs also provide a great opportunity to get your message out there and for feedback.

7. Retain the services of a pro – Consider hiring a reputation management professional to guide you through the process. An outside perspective is always helpful for fresh insight that you may not consider.

The reputation management tips are just a few of the many ways that you can manage your firm's standing online. Most cost very little and the information gathered in the process provides a clear perception as to how your target audience views your company and products.

About The Author:

Brick Marketing offers full service Website Marketing services such as: Pay Per Click Management, Search Engine Optimization, Social Marketing, Blog Services, Affiliate Program Management and more. Call 877-295-0620 or visit:
http://www.brickmarketing.com/reputation-management.htm

Affiliate Marketing Tips

By Jossef Salman

The best 10 affiliate marketing tips

A full 76% of people trying to earn income from the web found the task either too confusing, too expensive or downright impossible!

Some have no idea what so ever how to work with affiliate marketing; and end up spending time and even money with out any results. The other knows exactly what affiliate marketing is and what it takes, but they do not want to work and give it some time "they do not treat it as business".

Affiliate marketing is a business, require work "some times hard work", time "which mean patient", and money "yes like any business affiliate marketing require investment and expenses".

If you thing you are one of the other 24% who successfully can and will work the affiliate marketing so here are some very important affiliate marketing tips for you:

If you are promoting a free affiliate programs, you must find a way to sell their products and teach your sub affiliates to sell. This is the only way you can make money from free affiliate programs. Selling and driving good quality and quantity of traffic to your affiliate website.

It is better to promote a pay-per-referral affiliate program, especially when you can have all the information about your referrals. Program like ProfitMatic(http://moneyonline.profitmatic.com/) can easily build you a stream of income, by paying you a commission from the membership fee and at the same time you are building a list of powerful willing to pay, subscribers.

Do not use pay-per-click marketing to promote a free to join affiliate program, it is very bad ROI "return of investment"; instead use PPC to promote pay to join programs, and products. This way you will have a commission earning that can cover your PPC costs and leave you some good profits.

Build your own website with your own domain name; you can earn few dollars out of promoting your affiliate links, but you can have more and much more if you promote your own website. In it you redirect people to your affiliate products and programs. Here Niche marketing is the best profitable strategy.

If you are trying to market your links free, try to use free traffic generation programs in a very clever way: if your affiliate program suggest a specific traffic exchange program, do not use it "not for this affiliate program" use deferent traffic exchange. The same suggestion had been given to all affiliate in this program.

If your program or opportunity having a Co-op, do not use it, simply because most of your Co-op partners are your competitors, try to find other co-op, or partner with other friends and affiliates to build a new Co-op.

Use e-mail marketing to promote your affiliate links even if you have your own website. Try to offer your affiliate products and opportunity to your list. If you do not have a list, begin building one immediately, and use ezin ads.

Join more than one opportunity to offer more to your visitors.

send deferent offers to your up line, put him in your subscriber list as you are in his, and promote to him the same way he promotes to you.

There are good free affiliate programs that will give you free products only by joining, so join. Free programs like MoreNiche (http://www.arabian-affiliate.com/MoreNiche.htm) they will give you some good marketing materials only by joining, so join and use these materials in promoting your opportunity.

At the end you have joined affiliate programs (http://www.arabian-affiliate.com/affiliate-programs.htm) only to make money online, so think carefully. Are your marketing efforts paying back, if not change strategies; and some times add new opportunities and products.
Personally I invest money in marketing only for one program that I am affiliate with and it is ProfitMatic. I think this is the smartest way to get a ROI in your marketing effort. And every prospect I refer to this program after one month he will do any thing I ask him to do. Why?

Simply because I have brought him to this powerful program, and helped him build his own down line, and he began to make money on line. And this is the only way I use to build my list, and it is the best strategy to build good active list. Keep in mind that when we pay for something we then take it very serious, and when we invest money even small amount, we will do any thing to make it work.

About The Author:

Jossef Salman, author of http://www.Arabian-Affiliate.com &
http://moneyonline.profitmatic.com The home biz guy, working only online and make the income I really deserve.

Affiliate And Home Business Marketing That Creates Excitement

By Thinus DeVilliers

Marketing your affiliate products or home based business can be very exciting and extremely lucrative if done correctly, but it can also be a disheartening experience if you take all the time to set up a website that you are proud of, and no business makes its way to your masterpiece. I will highlight some of the biggest downfalls and also some of the best routes to follow which can mean the difference between a total disaster of your online business or an exhilarating success.

One of the most frequent occurring pitfalls amongst newcomers is to create a website with a lot of banners or affiliate links on various different products in the hope that somebody interested in those products will magically arrive at your site and buy them. Chances that somebody is going to buy a product other than what they are looking for at that moment are very slim. The answer lies in creating a website on a specific subject in the form of a content page, blog or even a sales page. More sales can be accomplished by selling affiliate products related to the content presented on the site. In this way you are attracting a more targeted audience as they are
already interested in the subject and thus more interested in the related products. And Hey Presto, you've got a recipe for success as this greatly enhances the chances of them buying through your affiliate links.

Another advantage of narrowing your site content down to a specific subject is that you can target it with related keywords for search engine optimization, pay per click advertising and article marketing. Although these marketing methods are all subjects outside the scope of this article, it should not be taken lightly as they can vastly increase your traffic and sales by sending targeted traffic through your affiliate links.

You should also not ignore the power of an email list. You can build an email list by offering a free gift or news letter, for example, as an incentive for a person to subscribe to your list. Having a large subscriber data base can be very rewarding, in fact you can actually create income at will. If a new product hits the market that you are promoting as an affiliate and you have a list of a few thousand members or more that you can broadcast to, only a small percentage needs to buy for you to make a pretty decent profit.

One more thing to consider is the type of affiliate links you are using. In my experience text links within the contents of your website creates a better click through rate than banners. A few banners here and there are acceptable, but people are so used to being drowned in banner advertising that they tend to ignore them. I suggest that you rather create an interesting
article or a good story related to the product you are selling, with affiliate text links embedded inside. This once more increases your chances of making sales.

Take some time to read up more on the different marketing methods I mentioned and remember to cater for a targeted audience. These methods can be very useful in any home based business or affiliate product that you might want to promote. If you are serious about your business and consistently do a little every day, you are prone to succeed.

About The Author:

Thinus de Villiers specializes in the research of Home Based Business, Affiliate Programs and
Marketing Methods on the bases of Product Quality, Compensation Plan, Backup Support, Legitimacy and also whether a good Co-op Advertising Campaign is in place, which can really automate your business on line. To learn more visit: http://www.EduProView.com

Internet Marketing Strategy For Your Home Business - Know Your Competition

By Anderson Josiah

One of the biggest challenges any new business owner will face is dealing with the threat of new competitors who want to get a piece of your market. This is something that you cannot get away from when in business so forming a powerful strategy even before you start up is very important in order for your business to be successful in the long term.

Additionally it is not only very important to know and understand your direct competition but you also need to now about indirect competitors in your market. Using the internet to spy on your competition is a very powerful marketing strategy.

Nearly all the goods that are available on the market have substitutes and compliments.

An example is if someone wanted to purchase some powered detergent if she or he could not find any in the supermarket they can then probably decide to buy liquid detergent instead.

This is also true for any type of industry because customers will always be able to find substitutes for services and products that they can't find. We also need to consider having a very effective distribution system that will allow you to reach targeted customers where they are located; this will greatly increase your money earning potential.

It is also a very good idea to always check out the features of your competitor's products, the quality and price range that they offer.

Being aware of the weaknesses and strength of you competition and comparing it with your own will give you the opportunity to put in place strategies that will allow you to effectively compete in your marketplace. You would want to concentrate on your good points and try to take advantage of your competitor's weak points. Remember your competition would be doing the same to you, they would try to point out your weak points to your customers to try to improve there market share.

In addition to your present competition, you should also consider future competition because it is very possible that new competitors will try to enter your market in a couple of years. You can visit blogs, forums and chatrooms that are related to your particular market to keep up with new trends, technologies and potential threats to your business. Having a very strong strategy and a loyal customer base will enable your online home business to survive all these potential challenges. Most new businesses put there emphasis on a low price range and this could either be a good or a bad for your business.

An example of this is that it can be great if the product that new competition is offering has a lower price but if it is of a poor quality this will establish your product as a superior good or product. But, if they are offering better good and services at a much lower price, then you might need to get involved in a price war. Never forget that your strategy should always depend on the particular situation and perception of your market. If you would like to know more on this topic check out the link below for "Dotcomology" the art of making money with your home business.

About The Author:

Andy The Home Biz Wiz recommends for more information subscribe to my FREE Internet Home Business tips newsletter and get hundreds of money making tips and tricks along with FREE Software delivered to your inbox. A $147 value, yours FREE: http://www.MakingMoneyFromHomeOnTheInternet.com

A Simple & Effective Keyword Strategy for Ecommerce Sites

By Karon Thackston

When it comes to ecommerce sites, there are plenty of keywords to choose from. Because sites typically follow a fairly set format, numerous pages are created between the home page and the order confirmation page. Those pages all need keywords and phrases if they are going to rank high in the search engines. So, how exactly do you choose the best keywords for each page? Here's an easy strategy to follow. (Please keep in mind that all keyphrases used in this article are for example only and have not been researched.)

Home Page - Broad Keywords

When you start out, use keywords and phrases that are descriptive of your overall site. For example, if you sold clothing for the entire family, you might opt for phrases such as "ladies clothing," "men's clothing" or "kids clothing." Those would be expressive, but could also be worked easily into the home page copy.

Think of the sales process as a funnel. It's broad at the lip and gets more narrow as you move closer to the spout. The same goes for the keyword strategy: broad keyphrases at first and more specific ones as the subject matter gets more specific.

Category Page - Specific Keywords

Once you move to the category pages, you'll want to select keyphrases that work well with what you're trying to describe in your copy. If your visitor clicks on the women's shoes category, she'll want to read about and see pictures of women's shoes. Perhaps you'll use phrases such as "fabric ballet flats" or "leather peep-toe pumps."

I typically create a paragraph at the top of the page, then add a descriptive sentence or two under each image. Sometimes, I'll also add a paragraph of copy at the bottom of the page. This helps guide your visitors through the sales process.

Product Descriptions - Long-Tail Keywords

The product description pages should incorporate long tail keywords that are laser specific. If your visitor clicked on a link for "Bermuda shorts" on the category page, you'll want to get as detailed as possible, so your customer can make the decision to buy.

For instance, a keyphrase such as "Liz Claiborne pastel plaid Bermuda shorts" would be perfect for a product description because it is. well. descriptive. Long? Yes, it is a long phrase. Most long-tail keywords will be. But the further into the sales process a customer gets, the more specific their searches will be. Chances are, someone who has decided she wants pastel plaid shorts will use a phrase like the one above instead of something like "Bermuda shorts."

Here's a plus: Because long-tail phrases are much less competitive than broader terms, you stand a better shot at getting ranked highly for them.

A Word on Linking

Here's where some copywriters get confused. When you use links in anchor text, you're giving credit to the page being linked to. For instance, if you have a category page for shorts, you would want to use the keyphrase "Bermuda shorts" in the anchor text of a link that pointed to the Bermuda shorts page. That way, the Bermuda shorts page gets credit for the link. The link would be of no (or very little) value to the general shorts page.

When you take note of the navigation and purchase cycle of your visitors, you begin to see why this simple strategy for keyword placement works so well. Using more specific terms as you write more specific copy helps usher visitors from the front door to the checkout counter with ease while also boosting your search engine rankings.

About the Author:

Get the latest release of Karon's popular ebook Writing With Keywords (formerly titled How to Increase Keyword Saturation). This new 4th edition includes 11 clever strategies for keyword optimization as well as the latest information about changes with how stop words and punctuation affect SEO copywriting. Order today at http://www.writingwithkeywords.com.

Work For Success In Your Business

By Dustin Heath Cannon

Home work business opportunities are increasing all the time. Running a business is not the easiest thing to do. The difference between people who succeed at home work businesses and those who don't is the way their run their business.

People who earn wealth in a work at home business know that you need to focus on profits. If you keep focused on profits, you will have wealth. If you set a goal of a certain amount and when you reach that amount you stop working for the week or month, you will never get wealthy.

You should not quit your day job until you make enough or more money from your home business for three consecutive months. Since you still have bills to pay, you need to keep a regular paycheck coming in. It is possible that you may have more bills if your home business venture requires materials. The three month is not a rule set in stone but three months is a good cushion period for a new business.

It is advisable to find one thing and stick to it. If you jump from one business to another it will be like starting over every time you change. Offering a variety of products or services may cause you not to do a good job on everything. Just because you are a good painter does not mean that you are a dry wall expert. If you want to expand your horizons at a later date, that would be okay. It would also give you time to research and practice before expanding your business.

In looking at a new home work business opportunity, think strategy not tactics. A strategy is made up of different tactics. Pricing, advertising, customer service, distribution, etc are all tactics. All these tactics pull together as a strategy to make up a successful business.

Experts on business believe that it takes seven years of very hard work before you make serious money with a new business. They advise not chasing money. The more you chase money, the more it will elude you. If you work hard and work smart, wealth will come to you.

A smart business person will not base their business on a fad or something that will fade away in three months. Pet rocks are a good example of this. Base your business on something that is solid and will last. Many business owners have been left with nothing by chasing "pipe dreams". If you base your business on something you know and like, you will work hard to make it succeed.

Home work business opportunities are out there waiting for energetic, hard working people. Success and wealth can be found if you want it bad enough. Research, planning and strategy are all part of a home work business.

About The Author:

Dustin Cannon, of Next Level Enterprises, LLC is a successful Internet marketer working with top leaders in the home business and Internet marketing industry. For more information on the Passport To Wealth business opportunity visit: http://www.passportmarketingblog.com/

7 Steps To Improve Your Website

By Bernadette Doyle

Begin by understanding the difference between direct-response websites and brochure websites. Brochure websites have a nice, safe logical layout of information but little, if any, clear
calls to action. Direct response websites are geared towards getting visitors to take action.

1. Tell them who it's for and what you can do for them in the first few seconds. Instead of simply having your name at the top of your website, use that space to announce WHO your site is for,
and WHAT you can do for them. That means that in the first few seconds you target visitors will have the reaction "Yes, this is for me". Of course, that will be at the expense of any untargeted visitors who will click away, but you didn't want them anyway!

2. Remove anything that does not support your MWR. MWR is short for 'Most Wanted Response' a term I first heard about from Ken Evoy, author of Make Your Site Sell.

What do you want people to DO when they first visit your site? Call to arrange a consultation? Request more information? Book a coaching session? Reserve a space at your next workshop? Have a clear MWR for each and every page of your website and then only include the content that moves visitors towards your MWR and strip away anything that doesn't.

3. Capture visitors' details. Less than 1% of visitors will buy on their first visit to a website, that's why it's important to capture their details so you can follow up with them.

4. Less is more. In many of the sites I critiqued today, it was almost like the site owners were thinking "I don't know exactly what I should say to my web visitor, so I'll just throw out a
load of things in the hope that SOMETHING grabs their attention". Unfortunately, just adding more and more options or information is simply going to confuse your visitor, and if they aren't sure what to do next, they will probably take the easiest option and click away...forever!

5. Personalize your site. Include your photo and a biography. Let visitors see the person behind the website. It's true that people buy people!

6. Use a mixture of 'towards' and 'away from' language in your sales copy. Some of the sites I reviewed today were for coaches who are very solution oriented in their approach and web-copy. The trouble is, this only works for visitors who have the same solution-oriented outlook and people with problems are typically... stuck in their problems!

7. Copywriter Robert Collier said that you have to "enter the conversation that is already going on in the prospect's mind" and sometimes that means you have to start with the problems that are preoccupying them. So show people that you can both solve pressing problems as well as achieve desired end solutions.

It is critical that your direct response website connect emotionally with visitors who are in your target market. You can do this by making them feel at home so when they visit your site they know they are in the right place. Remove anything that does not lead to your most wanted response, capturing their contact details, limit unneeded text and images, making your site more personal, using the right mix of copywriting that appeals to your target market and addressing the problem visitors are experiencing and explaining the benefits of working with you.

About the Author:

(c) Bernadette Doyle, 2008. Reprints welcome so long as by-line and article are published intact and all links made live.

Bernadette Doyle publishes her free, weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them then sign up for the Client Magnets newsletter at http://www.ClientMagnets.com today!

Internet Marketing Strategy – Online Internet Business

By Anderson Josiah

Three Things NEVER To Do with your Online Business.

In business there are certain things you must not do if you want to be successful in your online home based business. But if you already run a successful business you would already know this. If you are new to business ownership the following tips can be very helpful. First of all never ever skimp on promotion advertising and marketing. Without adequate marketing your business can end up making a huge loss in product or services sales.

A perfect example is a small business that sells audio CD's for children that is introducing a new item on the market. This business is unknown and relatively new. They have a great website which they advertise in a couple of the local newspapers, Only a small handful of people will be aware of this new company and its audio CD product. A much better way of marketing and advertising would have been to advertise in larger nationwide newspapers or putting there website address on a Billboard that can be seen by allot of people in heavy traffic areas. This might be a little more expensive but you will get more bang for your buck, you will reach a greater audience base.

Secondly never underestimate your competition; use the internet to do some investigating and always keep your guard up. If you are in a very competitive market you should consider this. If
for example you own a Music Site you would want to know if any sites have any special offers. Do they have a greater selection? What are there rates like, are there prices cheaper or more expensive? Do the have discounted packages like buy 5 get one free? You need to pay close attention to both the bigger and smaller Music Sites both in your area and nationwide. You want to be competitive with there prices so if you can't go cheaper try to at least match there prices. Customers love to get cheaper prices even if it only saves them a couple of cents.

Lastly you should never go into business without properly researching it. You want to ensure you know as much as you can about the home business you are planning to get involved with.
You want financial details and as much information on your potential competition, the internet can help you get this information. When you devote time to do research you improve your chances for success, it is almost guaranteed, you would not want any surprises coming up later down after you have invested your time and money. You want your business to run as easy as possible

If you follow the internet marketing strategy above your online internet business would be on the right track. This will help you create a good business foundation. Remember do not enter
into any business venture without proper planning and research. Treat your company like you would treat your children. Nurture it, give it allot of loving care and all the things that it will
need to grow and you will be happy with the results If you would like to know more on this topic check out the link below for "Dotcomology" the art of making money with your home business.

About The Author:

Andy The Home Biz Wiz recommends for more information subscribe to my FREE Internet Home Business tips newsletter and get hundreds of money making tips and tricks along with FREE Software delivered to your inbox. A $147 value, yours FREE: http://www.MakingMoneyFromHomeOnTheInternet.com

Small Business Marketing | Getting Great At Article Writing

By Marketing Buzz

This article looks at what and why small and medium sized business owners need to do to turn their ideas and dreams into reality by actually using article writing to grow their business.

Using article writing as part of your business marketing can generate traffic to your website and increase your income and exposure for you and your business.

In this article I'm going to look at why article writing is one of the easiest ways in which to market your business and why it needs to form part of your ongoing marketing mix.

If your business has a website, a blog or an online shop then article writing is for you. You can have the best website in the world but without regular visitors and traffic to your site then it's not really worth having on online presence at all. And there really is only 2 ways to get traffic to your site – you pay for it (pay per click, banner advertising, affiliate schemes, directory advertising etc) or you get free traffic (optimization in the search engines natural or free listings
being the main way).

Don't get my wrong paying for traffic can really work and pay per click advertising is great as it gives you instant results and if you can convert visitors to sales then it can make you and your company money.

HOWEVER, you can get even better results by being listed high in the natural search engine listings (or SERPS) and article writing can really help with this.

When people use a search engine like Google they are presented with numerous listings based on what they are searching for. The sponsored (or paid) listings appearing at the top and down the right hand side and the free or natural listings appearing on the main page. Pretty straightforward yes? But what am I telling you that you don't already know?

Well did you know about the 70/30 rule?

The 70/30 rule means that 70% of visitors to a search engine will click on a free listing rather than a paid for listing who just get 30% of total clicks. This means that even if you run highly successful pay per click campaigns over two thirds of people searching for your product/company/service could be going elsewhere unless you appear high in the free listings.

Now if you have a large marketing budget then I'd recommend investing in search engine optimization (be careful though as there's thousands of so called SEO experts out there who make big promises without delivering).

However if you don't have a large budget then article writing can really help you move up the rankings, establish you as an expert in your field and mean you get traffic, visitors and sales for little time and money.

Marketing done well can transform your business from an also ran to leaders in your particular field and size of your budget doesn't have to hold you back. Be smart with your marketing and article writing and watch your business grow – JUST DO IT!

About The Author:

Mark Burdett is the owner of The Marketing Buzz. For information on The Marketing Buzz and their range of small business marketing services visit http://www.themarketingbuzz.co.uk

Exactly What Is Keyword Density?

By The Davinator

There are usually a lot of questions that arise when people hear about the term "keyword density." Many people are not sure of what the term is pertaining to, or are not sure of acceptable percentages of density. This little explanation of what the term keyword density refers to should clear up some of the confusion that arises.

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords shouldn't be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places. At one time, before the search engine algorithms were set up to detect such spamming, people were tricking the search engines to get a higher placement by performing what was coined "keyword stuffing".

People were completely abusing the search engines, and over time, they smartened up and got wise to it.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your web page (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.

Simple steps to check the density:

- Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.

- Go to the 'Edit' menu and click 'Select All'. Now go to the 'Tools' menu and select 'Word Count'. Write down the total number of words in the page.

- Now select the 'Find' function on the 'Edit' menu. Go to the 'Replace' tab and type in the keyword you want to find. 'Replace' that word with the same word, so you don't change the text.

- When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.

- Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

The above way of checking your keyword density is a bit of an old fashioned way, but it still does work for the purposes of figuring out what you density actually is. These days, there are many different types of softwares on the market which makes this
job a whole lot easier.

About The Author:

Davin Ogden owns and operates several web sites on the internet. He mainly specializes in SEO and viral marketing. For more information on keyword density, SEO, and many other aspects of SEO please visit his site at http://www.davinatorbiz.com

SEO For Local Markets

By Michael Francis

Many brick and mortar companies that are catering to their local clientele find it hard to SEO for local markets despite targeting the best keywords. Quite naturally this is not a surprising matter as many of them, although efficient in running their off line businesses, typically stumble over two critical blocks.

Stumbling Blocks and SEO for Local Markets

When local businesses set to do SEO for local markets, many of them invariably ignore the need to think rationally because they are advised by SEO experts to target the big three search engine users and sometimes get confused and tackle this feat on a global level resulting in global traffic. The direct fall out of this step is exposing your business offers, products or services
to the world at large only to dilute all other local online SEO efforts. If your product is not global you are in trouble. So here is the stumbling block number one.

1. Not using localized target keywords, however good they are, will leave your new websites way down the SERP's locally. Actual localized keywords you should be targeting in which will bring you a steady stream of natural traffic.

The second block where you might probably stumble, especially if you are new to web and optimization is wrongfully assuming internet marketing techniques as something radically different and for removed from the earthly- worldly affairs that we all do by trial and errors over and again. The crux of the matter here is SEO for local markets is only a small part of larger marketing exercises, with certain twists, to get exposure with local locations. Here is the second stumbling point in SEO for local markets.

2. SEO for local markets is not a marketing technique but a sophisticated local technique of optimizing websites on a local basis. Obviously, the one who knows the pulse of the market is not the SEO expert but can contribute his knowledge to SEO expert.

So, What Is Actually SEO For Local Markets?

Let me dash you through steps involved in SEO for local markets in short.

1. Localize your target keywords. This includes prefixing or suffixing local terms, names, and names of areas, cities or zip codes with target keywords. Example: "remodeling contractors Orange County", not "remodeling contractors".

2. Submit to local search engines (find one, if you don't know already), directories and web based yellow pages.

3. Display your mailing address with street address, zip code and complete. Once your site is indexed, these words gain prominence as a part of content.

4. Submit to local listing sections of Yahoo and DMOZ which is in addition to generalized listing.

5. Don't leave out general SEO techniques because you want to SEO for local markets which the power of link building which can be done globally as there might not be enough local sites to beat you competition.

6. Get on the local maps of Google, Yahoo, as this generally puts you on front of the local search engines.

7. Exchange links and banners with local businesses as the local traffic exchange will bring you new business. Avoid changing banners or links with competitors but exchange them with businesses that will complement you. Verify there traffic so it's a almost even exchange.

Dominating local SEO can be done fairly easy you just have to either hire a professional with a proven track record or take time to learn local SEO. The main concern is to be patent as it takes at least 3 months to start seeing results.

About The Author:

Michael S. Francis the author is a SEO expert for local businesses. Michael S. Francis is the owner of http://www.seovida.com a search engine optimization company that has worked with fortune 500 companies optimizing their sites. Go to the site now to freely subscribe to a free local SEO class.

Having The Proper Keyword Research Tools

By The Davinator

There are many different types of keyword research tools out on the market these days. Some are free, and of course, some are not.

When we are talking about keyword research tools or software, you really need to take this part of your marketing seriously. For if it wasn't for good keyword research, most people wouldn't have much success at all. This is the reason that it is so vitally important to have good tools to work with.

There are some online services that have been around a while. Some of these sites and tools are still regarded for their high quality, and rightly so. Word Tracker, is among one of the first and still remains to be one of the most effective sites around. It's been proven time and again, it is simply a great tool, that provides quality results.

SEO Book has been largely popular in the past couple of years as well. I've often used SEO Book's Keyword Research tool in many cases, and did cross references between a couple of the other alternatives around. It does provide great results as well. While I don't think it may be quite as accurate as Word Tracker, it is still a good tool to be utilizing in much of your research.

Overture's keyword suggestion tool is free and much quicker to use than Wordtracker. It works more like the Wordtracker but it will not tell you how many sites are competing for a certain keyword phrase. For example if you type 'golf clubs', the Overture search suggestion tool will tell you that during the last month the words 'golf clubs' was searched, say for example 340000 times at Overture.Com. Similarly 'golf balls' was searched 310987 times. Also, given one word it will tell you all relevant combinations of that word, which are based on actual searches done by people. If the word you keyed in is not a common highly searched term then you might not get any results. It means that hardly anybody has searched for that term in the last month.

There is a bit of a newer keyword research tool out there these days that can be obtained for free as well. The Groovytastic Keyword Dominator is such a tool, and it actually takes all of it's results from Word Tracker itself. So this is really good in terms of having a great source for it's information that it brings back. It returns all of the keyword results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Some people regard these three search engines as The Big Three, meaning that these are the search engines to be really concerned about.

There is a drawback of The Groovytastic Keyword Dominator though, and that is, the keyword research software only returns results for the top 100 related results. It won't dig down any further than one hundred deep in finding related keywords or keyword phrases. This really only means, that in some cases you may not find that real low hanging fruit, or combinations of long tail search terms.

The Groovytastic Keyword Dominator is still a very good and useful tool though. It performs good and accurate keyword research fast, and does give you the results that in many case will be enough that all important start on building and creating your site around your chosen set of keywords and keyword related phrases.

About The Author:

Davin Ogden owns and operates several websites on the internet. He specializes in viral marketing strategies and SEO. Check out his site containing information on keyword research, SEO software and more at http://www.davinatorbiz.com.

What Is Organic SEO?

By David Odgen,

Before we can understand what organic SEO is, we first need to understand just what search engine optimization is itself. When many people hear the words "Search Engine Optimization", the phrase is enough to scare them off. In the next paragraph we will try to put those people's minds at ease with a simple explanation.

Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process.

The most popular search engines are known as "The Big Three". These search engines include Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine uses tons of different factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine.

Brand new sites don't necessarily need to be submitted to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. This is itself, a form of Organic SEO. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues. One of the most important factors in gaining very good results with Organic SEO is in the keyword research itself. Some people tend to think that this crucial part of the process doesn't matter that much, but, if you end up competing with millions or even billions of other search results you will had wished you learned more about this important step

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the
same time.

For the most part, the companies that provide work for their clients only participate in getting the sites good ranking with Organic SEO practices. It's really not worth it for these companies to be using what are know as "Black Hat" practices, as it would only hurt the reputation of their business in the long run.

About The Author:

Davin Ogden runs several successful web sites on the internet. It you would like to learn more about Organic SEO and more helpful information please visit his site at
http://www.davinatorbiz.com.

Optimizing For The Masses

By Dan Mercurio

You write your content effectively, you follow what you believe are the "Golden Rules", you watch how and where the content is placed on pages and yet you seem to not be able to get your web site ranked highly enough no matter what you do. You do your research and find yet more information that you feel may be attributing to the issue and start all over once more trying
ever more to overcome the problem without success.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies have been trying for years to figure out the magic behind what the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN are looking for when determining whether your content and what you are doing with your web site merits moving you up in the ranks to allow your website to show anywhere close to the top 10 or 20 spots that are valued so highly.

If we look back over the years, we find that there were specific search engine optimization techniques and practices specific to each of the major search engine players. For one it might be something as simple as, placing two repetitions of every keyword side-by-side in your meta keywords tag. In another it might have been something as simple as place your text on the
page in a font size and color that was overly readable and started in the upper left of the page.

Today, there has been some consistency brought to the table and the majority of SEO can be done with the same rules and standards in mind. A few easy to remember techniques such as
using keywords appropriately, adding more static and easily crawled text, and promoting sites through social networks, and directory services have made things much easier across the board
for everyone. A lot of people still have questions and concerns about which engines they should target and why some search engines seem to work better for them than others.

What has been found is that beyond the obvious (on page content and web site design), other factors too can effect if and how you may get ranked. The age or newness of a site as an example can keep a site from being ranked at all, let alone moving up in the ranks. The type of content and the relevancy to the business or services being promoted will play a large part in this as well.

Most recently, due to the acceptance of Blogs, social networking sites such as MySpace and other sites that promote online interaction and postings, the avenues and approaches for getting a web site noticed has changed. Utilizing some industry accepted and search engine friendly techniques, one can very quickly get their web site noticed, indexed by the major search
engine players and ultimately starting the ever sought after goal of being ranked high on the board.

So as the times change and lifestyles and social networking and blogs grow even more, the job of search optimization will always need to be reviewed, but staying in touch with these changes will allow this process to work in a very positive way and to the benefit of everyone concerned.

About The Author:

Elite Search Engine Marketing is an http://www.elite-searchenginemarketing.com SEO company. We can administer a quality search engine marketing campaign for you as we have for http://www.doverhonda.com Southern Maine Honda and http://www.autoservtilton.com Nissan New Hampshire.

Speaking Tips - Break Through the Ho-Hum Barrier

By Bonita L Richter

One of the fastest ways to grow your list of contacts and leads is to give a speech with an audience brimming full of people in your market niche.

How many speeches did you attend in the last year? How many of them do you remember? How many of the presenters' names do you recall? Hmmm...thought so...not that many. Let's fix this problem so you will not be amongst the "forgettable".

I'm sure you are already familiar with some of the more common speaking tips about how to get over your fear of public speaking, how to "tell them what you're going to tell them," "tell them," etc.

In this article, I am going to share with you four uncommon speaking tips that I use to create my speeches, that have garnered comments like, "The instructor rocks!" from attendees, which is more desirable than alternative comments might be!

Use these tips or steps, and you will turn your speeches from mediocre into extraordinary, which will attract much more business to you when you conduct speaking presentations and seminars.

The Four Steps

Imagine you are speaking to an audience of fifty people, and they begin shouting out these four emotional outbursts as you give your talk:

1. "Ho hum!"

2. "Why bring that up!"

3. "For instance?"

4. "So what?"

I'm sure the thought of this has you feeling like a mass of quivering jelly. Nevertheless, thinking about this experience will teach you some valuable lessons about giving a successful speech.

Let's address each of these four emotional outbursts individually, and I'll give you some tips about how to avoid these from being shouted at you while doing a presentation; literally or figuratively.

1. "Blast through the "Ho-Hum" Barrier!"

Have you ever attended a speech or seminar where the presenter started like this?

"Today we are going to talk about 5 strategies to reduce the high school dropout rate"...

Ho-Hum!

How much more interesting it would be to start your speech with,

"50% of high school students drop out of our largest cities' high schools each year."

The most critical principle of giving an effective speech is your opening must electrify your audience, shake them awake, and crash the ho-hum barrier. Otherwise, you've lost their attention before you've even gave them one piece of useful information.

Get their attention, make a startling statement, and provide an interesting fact. Next time you are creating an opening line for a speech, put it to the "Ho-Hum" test. If it doesn't pass, rework your opening line until it's a zinger!

2. "Why Bring that Up?"

Okay, you've crafted your opening line. The next thing to do is imagine your entire audience SHOUTS at you:

"Why bring that up?"

This is your invitation to expand upon your attention-getting opener. Tell them why they need to know the information you're sharing with them, how it will benefit them in a direct way.

Emotionally connect with them, because if you don't, again, they won't listen to you. The three most powerful drivers that generate emotional responses have to do with:

* Money

* Love

* Health

Tie in what you are saying to one of these three topics, and you've got them hooked.

3. "Examples, Please."

Next, the class shouts, "For instance?"

With this statement, they are demanding at least one specific, persuasive example of the point you're making. A powerful way to communicate this is through telling stories. Use stories and examples to bring your points to life. Flesh them out, let the audience "see" what you are telling them. Facts and figures may be forgotten, but stories are retold. Make yourself memorable; master the art of storytelling.

4. "So what?"

Finally, the class screams, "So what?" ---what do you recommend we do about this? Give them action steps they can take to solve the problem, and address the issue.

Give them information that is so useful, influential and effective, it can resolve even a seemingly enormous problem, and provide light in darkness to show them the best way out.

Remember, the most traveled road of common speech writing tips is the one that delivers us to the land of mediocrity. Use these four tips to put your speeches to the "mediocrity" test. Doing so will teach you how to develop powerful, influential speeches that people will listen to, and remember.

Copyright 2008, Bonita L. Richter

About the Author:

Bonita L. Richter, MBA, founder of Profit Strategies, teaches entrepreneurs and business owners how to start and grow businesses, attract more clients, and market their businesses to increase sales, business success, and generate wealth. Find out more about how to market your business and boost sales with her popular FREE eBooks at http://www.Profit-Strategies.biz

Article submission

By John Soares

How To Put Your Targeted Customer In A Buying Mood

1. Know your targeted customer. You must have an intimate knowledge of his wants and needs. Ask yourself:

a. "How does my product(s) benefit my targeted market?"

b. "Why should my targeted customers buy from me?"

c. "How will I fill my targeted customer's wants and needs?"

Once you have answered these questions, start writing your web copy. When you think you are finished, get an unbiased person(s) to read it and give you constructive criticism. When you think you have excellent web copy, move on to # 2.

2. Now take a closer look at your sales copy. It MUST make your targeted customer think:

a. "Hmmm..I really need this Product X" AND

b. "Gee, I wish I'd found this Product X six months ago".

Does it make you think those thoughts? If you have any doubts, get a few more unbiased persons(not the same ones!) to read your web copy. Ask them what thoughts come to mind as they read it. Don't stop rewriting until you hear your reviewers echo "a" and "b" above.

Do this properly and you can be sure that your targeted customers will have these positive thoughts too once they read your web copy.

Now let's move on to # 3.

3. Your potential customer is now in a receptive or buying mood. This is exactly what you want! Your customer will think you are giving him valuable information, as opposed to a sales pitch. Work hard to keep that positive impression. Now that your potential customer is in a buying mood...

4. It's decision time! Your customer MUST feel that he is making up his own mind. He will then justify his decision based on his wants and needs. Once your targeted customer has completed this step, your chances are excellent that he will place an order. Now for the most important thing...

5. Explicitly ask your customer to order your product. Make it VERY easy for him to do so. If you sell your own products, be sure you can handle credit cards, or at least online checks. The less time your new customer spends in the ordering process, the less time he has to change his mind!

6. Offer further information that your targeted customer can read online. He may not be ready to order your product today, but he may order after he reads your more detailed sales material. Remember, your potential customer may just need a little more convincing for him to become a buying customer!

Best of luck and many sales to you!

About the Author:

John Soares
Persuasive Web Writing Makes The Web Sale!
http://www.persuasive-web-writing-means-higher-web-sales.com/article_annbiz.html

Internet Marketing - One Giant Leap for Mankind

By Paul White

Those Oldies amongst us who can actually remember Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon never think of it as just history. We were there. It was live, and we were all part of it.

Practically everyone on earth who could, was huddled around a TV set watching the shaky black and white pictures in awe.

It was something that united the whole world like nothing before. First stop the moon,then onwards to the stars! They talked about tourist trips to the moon within 5 years. Hotels on Mars within 10 years, and a passenger cruiser to Jupiter by 1999!

But harsh economic and scientific realities meant a rapid slow down in our race to the stars, the space program was downgraded, and dreams of space travel for everyone were pushed aside, and all but forgotten. But then something else came along, even bigger than the moon landing in the history of the World - The Internet.

Now there really was no limit to what man or womankind could achieve.

With the internet, you could make your own personal journey to the stars! Untold wealth for everyone we were told, just pick up your free site, and wait for the money to roll in. Not just to the stars, but to heaven itself!

At least that's what we were all led to believe just a couple of years ago, when Amazon introduced the first affiliate sites. But sadly, just like the little boy playing with his space toys,
excitement, and expectation have given way to frustration and disappointment, and a general feeling that it just isn't possible for normal people to go to 'infinity and beyond!'

So is it time to take off your play spacesuit and give up? Is it time to shrug your shoulders and resign yourself to the fact that yet another of your dreams has been jettisoned out of orbit?

NO! In fact the space race has only just begun!

Even though your experience with the internet may be a disappointment so far, just stop and think. Can you imagine what disasters would have happened in the early Apollo missions if the astronauts had not been such highly trained professionals with the best possible equipment and resources.

Why should the internet be any different?

The journey to the stars is not just for the elite few. It is for everyone who chooses to travel. But you must have the right resources. You must have the knowledge, expertise and equipment necessary to survive. Quite simply, your business will die without it, just like an astronaut without life support.

For example, did you know:-

*You must have your own Website. It should be professionally designed with links to several affiliate/associate sites. A free affiliate/associate site is not enough on it's own.

* You also need to have your own domain name, not a free site name with a really long URL that no one will want to click on.

* You need to read everything you possibly can to learn how other people have done it. I now have a collection of dozens and dozens of Free e-books which I give away on my site, which contain all of the knowledge you will need.

*You can get thousands of people to your website by offering freebies and other things. Just spend a few hours surfing all the freestuff sites for things you can give away on your own site.

* You must have a constant source of traffic going to your website. Only a tiny fraction of people visiting your site will buy anything, so you need to get thousands to visit. Once you understand and accept this, and know how to get them, then you are on your way!

*You will never make any money by only advertising on free sites, even with submission software. Let people place an ad free on your site. You will get far more response than placing your own ad on someone else's free site.

*Once you start to become successful, then you can become even more so, by writing your own articles and submitting them to some of the thousands of e-zines and getting free publicity.

* Definitely the best way of doing business is to have your own newsletter to communicate with your customers to build up a relationship with them. For this you need a listserver. This is software which enables you to communicate with thousands of people at once.

I used to be like one of those poor monkeys in the early space flights, being led blindly into oblivion by their masters. Believing all the hype about instant riches, and not being able to do anything about it. Luckily I realised before too late, that instant riches is just fantasy. But with an investment of time to learn what to do, and an investment of money to get the right tools, anyone can be in control of their own flight to the stars!

About the Author:

Paul White webmaster of:- http://www.profitmountain.com is a former teacher who now dedicates his time to helping ordinary men and women to recapture their dreams and make money online. Feel free to e-mail regarding any online questions you may have:- webmaster@... Subscribe to profit mountains money making newsletter, and get free advertising for a year, and tons of other things!

More Tips for Better Writing

By Tim North

Your readers judge you on the way you write.

This applies whether you're writing advertising copy, a college or business report, a web site, or the next great novel; and it is these judgements that will determine the success or failure of your venture.

For example, would you buy a book if you flipped through the pages and saw spelling errors? Probably not. Such errors would detract from the CREDIBILITY of what was written. Similarly, the Internet is full of web sites offering to tell you how to write fantastic advertising copy that will triple your sales. The irony, is that most of these site look like they're written by an illiterate. You know the ones: spelling errors, poor grammar, ridiculous punctuation, and way too many exclamation marks.

Good, solid writing skills are necessary whether you're writing for business, college or fiction. In this article, I'm going to look at a frequently misunderstood area: hyphens.

Yes, it sounds dull; I admit it. Wait, though, before being tempted to put this article to one side, and test yourself with these real-world questions.

Q1. Why do many dictionaries list "infra-red" with a hyphen, but "ultraviolet" without?

Q2. Why does only the first of the following sentences need a hyphen?
We will discuss public-safety issues.
We will discuss issues of public safety.

Q3. Which of these is the preferred spelling:
co-ordinator or coordinator?
mid 1990s or mid-1990s?
selfesteem, self-esteem or self esteem?

Are you certain of all your answers? If not, read on, and we'll cover some simple guidelines for using hyphens. (You'll also find the answers to the questions above.)

SEVEN SIMPLE TIPS FOR USING HYPHENS
-----------------------------------

1. The prefix "self" is nearly always hyphenated; e.g. self-esteem, self-image, self-conscious.

2. When the prefix "ex" is used to mean former, it is always hyphenated; e.g. ex-wife, ex-premier, ex-treasurer.

3. Most of the time, prefixes don't need a hyphen; i.e. most dictionaries list "coexist" not "co-exist."

4. We do sometimes use a hyphen after a prefix, though, if the main word is only one syllable; e.g. infra-red. By comparison, ultraviolet doesn't need a hyphen (according to most dictionaries) because the main word is not one syllable.

5. Use a hyphen after a prefix in order to separate a doubled vowel; e.g. pre-empt, de-emphasise. There are some exceptions, though. Most modern dictionaries spell "cooperate" and "coordinate" without hyphens.

6. We tend to hyphenate compound words only if they come before a noun, not after. For example, we write a "public-safety issue" with a hyphen, but "an issue of public safety" is written without one.

7. Use a hyphen after the prefix if the main word has a hyphen of its own; e.g. non-customer-focussed approach.

Armed with these simple guidelines, you'll soon be using hyphens like an expert. Good luck! :-)

About the Author:

Tim North (info@...) is the author of "Better Writing Skills" -- a 200-page, easy-to-understand, downloadable book that will give you a competitive edge.

You can DOWNLOAD A FREE CHAPTER that's full of practical hints and tips from http://www.betterwritingskills.com

Internet Marketing - Creation and Evolution

By Paul White

And in the beginning came the creation of the internet, the entrepreneurs paradise on earth!

And with it came the Billboards and Discussion groups, and newsgroups then FREE classified and FREE links sites and FREE FFA software, and bulk E-mail programs to send your sales message to 10 billion eager credit card holders!

And when Bill Gates said:- 'you simply must have a website', how could the people ignore the word? Both big and small, every business had to have one, because the word had been spoken.

All of their sales projections were multiplied a thousand fold in anticipation of the new customers around the world, who would be sure to buy from them online, rather than at their local store. They knew it would happen because the creator had said so.

And then Amazon created a FREE self replicating affiliate website in its own image to show the true way to go. And the word was that everyone on earth could now start up in business, and it was their destiny that they should all become millionaires, for FREE!

How could life get any better? Pure heaven! Paradise created here on Earth for all of mankind! ...Mmm...What happened?

Like everything else the internet evolved. From it's humble military origins, used by a few elite 'cybernerds', it became the multimedia worldwide phenomenon we know today, and it still has a long way to go before it finishes its evolutionary journey. But is was never meant as an entrepreneurs paradise, whatever people wanted to believe.

Yes the faith and belief are still there, and rightly so, but the realities of evolution have changed everyone's perception of reality.

All of the small and large businesses have realised that just having a website does not mean that people will visit them, or buy anything.

And just like the creation of the universe, the internet is now going through it's own big bang, but in reverse. The internet is imploding, getting smaller, as the companies who believed that the internet was created for them, and that new customers would be sent to their site by divine intervention are folding.

The internet was not created for business. The internet was not created as a way of making everyone on earth with a website rich.

But the internet has evolved into the most amazing marketing tool ever invented in the history of the world!

But like any tool, you have to learn how to use it.

Just having a website will not make you money. You need to promote it just like any other business.

A search engine was not created to send people to your website. It is used by people who are interested in something, which may be the same thing you offer, but unless you are lucky enough to be in the top 20 of a search engine, no one will find you. Which means you have to promote your site in other ways.

(Incidentally, search engines change their criteria so often nowadays, that it has now evolved to the point where luck is just as important as scientific analysis in getting a good position!)

So sites like GoTo.com have come into being where you can choose your position on the search engine by bidding on key words.

Placing your ad in a FREE classified or FREE link site, may have been worthwhile at the beginning of creation, but they have now evolved to the point where they are only useful to the actual owner of the classified/link site. Having a FREE classified section on your website is a way of getting people to visit. You can also keep in contact with them by sending them an e-mail when their ad expires.

And what of bulk emailers? SPAM has evolved into a socially unacceptable practise, and spammers are realising that there are far more effective ways of marketing and making money without offending anyone.

People are also realising that their FREE affiliate site that thousands of other people have got, will not turn them into millionaires.

However a way of marketing has evolved which does work, where you have lots of different programs and promote them all at once by having them all featured on your own individual website, and drive traffic to it.

A vast amount of ezines has also now evolved. You can place your ad in targeted ezines to thousands of customers at a very reasonable price.

Or even better, start your own ezine or newsletter. You can get thousands of people to subscribe by offering things on your site like FREE Ebooks and Software.

Using a listserver, you can communicate with all of them at virtually no cost to yourself, and as all of the people have subscribed, they want to hear from you, and see your latest offer.

Even if, like most people you used to believe in the creation theory. The realities of evolution are much better as far as your bottom line is concerned, since there is far less competition!

The internet was not created to make everybody on earth rich, but is has evolved so that anyone who invests in the tools and works hard to learn how to use them, will be successful!

About the Author:

Paul White is a former teacher who now helps people around the world to become wealthy online. Visit his popular site:- http://www.profitmountain.com

Learning More About Expired Traffic And Its Importance

By John Khu

Every year millions of web portals become expired and redundant because of a number of reasons and causes. As a result of this, these web portals loose millions of hits and web site visits in the process. Most of these expired domains were once thriving businesses and money making ventures with a considerable amount of expired traffic attached to it. So, how this perceived expired traffic help you as a domain trader? Expired traffic is creating a big buzz these days and people are flocking over to buy an expired domain with expired traffic.

Expired traffic is just like using someone else's efforts to create a significant online asset. With expired traffic, you can save your money, time and effort. If you find an expired domain with plenty of expired traffic, you are a sure winner! It is almost like adding a huge bonus to your online kitty. The rule is very simple here: If the expired domain name that you buy has a
reasonably good link popularity value associated with it, it is highly probable that the expired domain in question was once thriving with plenty of site visitors.

Thus, the most important idea here is to buy those domains that come with plenty of traffic expired and gone. You may need to isolate such domains from a big inventory of expired domain names and register the ones boasting high link values as well as traffic. It seems that such domain names are commercially viable and highly critical for your online success.

However, there are conflicting views on the viability of expired domain that had a large amount of expired traffic in its previous avatar. While some people say that major search engines have a
practice of deleting the expired domain names from their search directories, others disagree with this argument saying that major search engine do not have the time to delete all those millions of web sites from their directories. This could be a major blessing in disguise for those expired domain traders who look for expired traffic.

The major task for you now is to locate those expiring domain names that carry plenty of expired traffic and inbound links. If you are lucky, you can even find a very good domain for a very low price of less than $50! You can use expired traffic for a number of purposes. The most important benefit of having expired traffic in your command is that you don't have to run around in search of traffic. Since the traffic is already there, with your expired domain, you can just use it immediately for your business purposes. If you are already running a web site, you can reroute the expired traffic to that site. This will help you sell you products or services with out putting extra efforts. If you feel that the expired traffic is of high quality, then you can dispose of the expired domain for a premium price. If you are a newbie, you can place your expired domain in a parking service and earn some form of income on an ongoing basis.

However, buying expired domains based on their perceived age could be a tricky issue and you may need to learn and understand how the age of a given domain expired can really help you in your domain trading business.

About the Author:

John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Blackhat SEO: Protect Yourself by Recognizing The Bad Guys

By Bill Platt

Over the years, webmasters have been told that they should want to avoid Blackhat SEO techniques in connection with their own websites. In general, I agree with this statement. But, by obtaining a deeper understanding of Blackhat search engine optimization, one could actually learn a bit about how to better his or her own positioning in the search engine results.

White Hat vs. Black Hat Search Optimization

Whitehat and Blackhat SEO is a comparison that is a take-off from the old cowboy westerns, where the good guys always wore white hats and the bad guys always wore black hats. So, in theory, we can assume that Whitehat practitioners are the good guys of SEO, and Blackhat practitioners are the bad guys of the industry.

But, the truth is a little bit more opaque than this. SEO is never a pure "white vs. black" issue. Just as in Mad Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy" series, sometimes the white spy whipped the black spy, and vice versa, sometimes the black spy was victorious.

In theory, Blackhat SEO is the type of search optimization that will eventually get your website banned in the search engines. And sometimes it will.

But, it is truly fascinating to me when I visit a website such as http://www.blackhatseo.com/ and discover the world-renowned SEO expert Aaron Wall owns the website. In case you were not aware of it, Aaron Wall is the owner of the SEO Blog at http://www.seobook.com/ and is recognized as one of the world's foremost leaders in SEO technique.

Blackhat SEO Is A Learning Opportunity

To me, the study of opposites offers a greater understanding to mankind.

* One cannot know "altruism", until one learns about "selfishness".

* One cannot truly appreciate "wealth", until they have experienced "poverty".

* One can never declare something "easy", until they have faced something truly "difficult".

* A "slow" driver will seldom be noticed, until which time the "fast" driver passes them by.

These are the philosophical ramblings of Bill. ;-)

I have always argued that in order to see the light, one must be able to recognize the darkness. And that is why when I am told to avoid something; I go right to it, so that I can see what it looks like, for the sake of being able to recognize it.

So, whenever I am in the mood to learn more about SEO, I search out Black Hat SEO forums and websites to learn how to recognize the dark, when I am in the light.

After all, if you cannot recognize the dark side, how do you expect that can you protect yourself from it?

There Are Always Two Sides To Every Story

Remember when your grandmother always told you that there were always two sides to every story? Well, my grandmother did, and I like to believe that everyone had a wise old grandma to help them find their way in life.

White Hatters teach us how to do things the right way. Black Hatters teach us the wrong way to do things. And as my grandmother used to be fond of saying, "the truth is somewhere in the middle."

For example, White Hat web programmers teach us how to install Captcha scripts on our websites to keep the spammers at bay. Then the Black Hat web programmers come along and teach the spammers how to break Captcha software (http://www.blackhat-seo.com/2008/how-to-break-captchas/). And as Grandma used to say, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The White Hatters try to teach us good programming technique and to present us with safe protection from spammers. And the Black Hatters teach us how to break the coding. You and I are in the middle, and by seeing the world through two sets of eyes (white and black); we can find better ways to protect our websites. Our websites are only as safe as the intelligence level of the programmers who try to protect us. If the bad guys are smarter, we lose. If the good guys are smarter, we rest safe in our protection schemes.

Some Black Hatters even call what they do Grey Hat SEO. One that I really like is called http://www.SlightlyShadySEO.com They did a post about the little fun pill and the folks who push it. They referred to it as a keyword that will give a lot of insight into how Google is combating the spammers online: http://www.slightlyshadyseo.com/index.php/some-insights-from-the-buy-viagra-results/

The previously mentioned post spoke at great length about the people who spam forums. We all despise these guys who trash up our favorite forums, and Slightly Shady exposes why our forums are always on the spammer's target list.

As my grandmother said, "the truth is somewhere in the middle." The little pill Black Hatters play an expensive game with the Google results, but at $2 commission per little pill, no wonder.
But now that we understand what is going on, we know that we need to make sure that we keep our own forums clean of this trash, to protect our Trust Rank. We also know that one slam is not the end of the world for us, if we are quick to clean our own houses. But, if we cannot keep our houses clean, the Google will stop coming by to visit, for the exact same reasons why most girls
avoid visiting bachelor pads.

Light Sources Are Always Brighter When We Stand In The Dark

One of my favorite television personalities, Carl Sagan said, "The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self discovery."

This quote reflects the reason for my voyages into the light side and dark side of SEO. I study Whitehat SEO and practice the same. I also study Blackhat SEO to understand what is defined as the opposite of Whitehat SEO practices. By seeing what is dark, I can better see what is in the light.

I am comforted in knowing that I will never be pulled blindly into the dark side with Darth Vader. ;-) To quote from the Bible, "The blind will lead the blind into a ditch." Now that my eyes have been opened to Blackhat SEO, I will never stumble and fall as I fish for better rankings in Google and the other primary search engines.

About the Author:

Bill Platt has been providing article marketing to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ He offers ghost writing and article distribution services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article writing success that can be found at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Read his blog at: http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/

Managing Pay-Per-Click Campaigns For Greater Profits

By Greg Jerum

All online business owners need a steady flow of traffic and paying customers to their websites in order to keep the cash register ringing and profits flowing. Most webmasters struggle with exactly how to make that happen, until which time they discover pay-per-click (PPC) advertising through the search engines, utilizing the Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing programs.

As small business owners discover the powerful advantage of using PPC advertising, they tend to spend a lot of time learning the systems and figuring out how to use these top-tier search-marketing tools to gain an advantage over their competitors.

In the growth curve of any business, a day will come when the business owner realizes that his or her personal time is best spent taking care of other business processes. When this time comes, the business owner will seek out other people to manage his or her PPC advertising campaigns.

It is at this juncture when business owners will either hire an in-house marketing person, or they will employ a third-party PPC Management company to service their PPC advertising accounts. This is where most businesses using pay-per-click advertising start to go wrong.

In-House Marketing Staff

It is true that the business owner needs to get back to the tasks that will make his or her business a true success. Part of the growth cycle is to find people who can replicate certain business processes, freeing the business owner to focus on other more important areas like product or service fulfillment, customer service, sales, human resources management, strategic planning and financial management.

But, finding the right person or company to best represent the needs of the business, in regards to PPC Management, can frequently be a crap shoot at best.

Racing to the local university to find a recent marketing graduate to bring into the company often results in opening a can of worms. Most college grads, which leave college with a degree in marketing, leave school with a very general understanding of basic marketing principles, human psychology, consumer behavior, advertising and promotion concepts, business finance, organizational management and strategic planning.

Although most universities do a good job at preparing their students for an entry-level job in marketing, few give their students any hands-on training in specific advertising methods that will be used in the real world, let alone with the advertising methods that enable commerce to flow on the Internet.

Pulling a marketing person from another business is often as problematic as hiring a recent college graduate. Unless one hires from a company that has used PPC advertising for some time, one might find the new hire possesses the same lack of hands-on experience with PPC advertising methods as the college grad.

Don't get me wrong; marketing professionals are essential to the overall implementation of a business' marketing plan. The problem is that the process of managing pay-per-click advertising campaigns really requires someone with very specialized experience, skills and knowledge.

The Problem With Most PPC Management Companies

An alternative to hiring someone in house is to hire a professional PPC Management company. The problem with most PPC Management companies is the same problem most people have with ordinary marketing companies.

* First, typically there is that huge down payment to get the job started;

* Most marketing companies require an ironclad contract committing the buyer to a six-month or twelve-month service contract;

* Marketing service companies typically require huge monthly fees to maintain the contract (with most PPC Management companies, these fees frequently run in the range of 10%-20% of your monthly PPC spend);

* The worst part about the typical Marketing company and PPC Management company is that while they extract a high toll from their customers, these companies seldom if ever offer any kind of real guarantee of results for the work that they will do for you.

After being burned two or three times by Marketing or PPC Management companies, most businesses start shopping for performance-based service providers. Unfortunately, it is a buyer-beware market out there.

PPC Management companies frequently suggest that their services are "performance-based", but what they define as "performance-based" is often different from what you or I would define as truly "performance-based".

How to Identify a "True" Performance-Based PPC Management Provider

When you are spending thousands of dollars per month on your pay-per-click campaigns, there are certain things that you should be able to expect from any PPC Management provider, who is claiming to offer performance-based services. I will outline some of the questions you should ask here:

* How are your performance-based programs structured?

* How will you measure performance improvements?

* Will I have to pay any fees that are not directly linked to performance improvements?

* Will the compensation that I have to pay be in proportion to the results you achieve for me?

* Who will be working on my account? Is their compensation fixed or is it derived from the real performance improvements they make for my account?

* How are you going to help me bring additional net profit to my business?

* What other clients have you worked with, and what kind of successes have you achieved for them?

* How long will I be required to keep my commitment to your company, if you are not producing real measurable performance improvements?

* Do I have any recourse if you do not produce better results than I can accomplish on my own, without your help?

The problem within the PPC Management industry is that most management companies see themselves as advertising services companies. They often lack the in house skill that it takes to consistently produce significant performance improvements for client accounts. Their only recourse to stay financially viable is to offer fee-based services where client payment is guaranteed but clients' results are not.

But, when a marketing management company adopts a true "performance-based" stance and begins to see itself as a partner in its client's future, then the management company will have the appropriate incentives to take care of its client's businesses in the same manner that it would take care of its own.

About the Author:

Greg Jerum is a principal at Net Return Marketing, a company which delivers true "performance-based" PPC Management to its clients. Net Return Marketing's programs require little to no up front investment and the long-term compensation that a client pays is based directly on account performance. Whether you are just getting started with PPC advertising or spending $100K plus per month, Net Return Marketing could be the solution to your PPC management needs. Learn more at: http://www.netreturnmarketing.com/ppc-management.html

How To Measure The Effectiveness Of Your Article Marketing Campaigns

By Bill Platt

I frequently rant on Internet marketing and some of the gurus who try to bend your ear. Why? Because many of these so-called gurus trash everything that makes sense in this Internet world,
especially when they realize that they cannot make money from the techniques being recommended.

I don't preach marketing concepts solely for the purpose of selling my products and services. (If you happen to buy my products or services, then awesome, but that is not my point when I share information from my SEO and other marketing campaigns.) I preach the concepts that I have used for myself successfully. Either you can trust me and test the things I recommend, or you can listen to the gurus and drown yourself in pity, when you realize you are not finding the success you seek.

I present things in such a way that anyone can actually go out and try my suggestions on their own, with or without my help. I want you to at least try what I suggest. I don't want you to try once, but I want you to commit yourself giving the suggested methods a chance to work for you.

Yes, I preach article marketing in connection with building link popularity value for your website (and I operate an article marketing company). But, I am not the only article marketing company out there. So, it remains possible for you to employ my article marketing techniques, without actually using my services specifically. (If you want to use my services, great, but you don't have to do so.)

Frequently, new customers come along and say, "Bill, I am going to try this once. If it works out for me, I will be back." My response is often, "Dude, you are selling yourself short, when you do something just once!"

As a person who has only written one article, you are just one in thousands of uncommitted, wannabe article writers. Your article may very likely be overlooked, because the publishers do not yet know your name or why they should care that you are writing articles.

When publishers have seen your name, 3, 4 or 10 times, then they are more likely to open your articles to see if they like your writing style and to see why they should pay attention to your message. Once publishers begin to pay attention to what you write, then publishers will open more of your articles, and perhaps publish your articles more frequently.

When you do a one-time out article, you are riding solely on a prayer, for success. (I am not in the prayer business - please see your pastor for that service.) But, if you can commit yourself to ten articles, your chance for article marketing success has been improved tenfold.

The first thing that needs to happen for article marketing to work for the promotion of your website is for you to create great content that other people want to publish. Then you must get noticed by the (ezine and website) publishers that will want to publish your articles. Once you have an audience, don't let them down --- keep giving them more content so that they can turn to you always.

To express this point, let me share a couple names with you. How many of you have heard of Willie Crawford? Willie has written and distributed 123 articles through my program, and he has 140,000 search results for his name in Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22willie+crawford%22).

My friend Clinton Douglas IV has written and distributed 36 articles. Google credits him with 17,500 mentions in the Google search results for his name (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22clinton+douglas+iv%22).

Both of these gentlemen suggest that they rely primarily upon articles to build their presence online. Of course, Willie is somewhat of an exception, since he has his fingers in so many pies. But, Willie still attributes much of his success to article marketing.

When it is time to measure your article marketing success, you should never go to Google's public search results and pull a simple search for your name or a link:yourdomainurl.com search. You should not even go to Yahoo's Site Explorer to find the same inforamtion.

Instead of relying on the public records for inbound link counts, you should register your website in Google's Webmaster Tools control panel at: http://www.google.com/webmasters

On the public side of Google, my site shows 33 inbound links (http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Athephantomwriters.com) and Yahoo Site Explorer credits me with 1,478 inbound links. But, inside of Google's Webmaster Tools, I have +10,000 inbound links according to Google's records. I am not going to divulge exactly how many inbound links I have (according to Google's Webmaster Tools), but even I was surprised by the strength of my link counts.

The fact is that Google will only show you a really small sampling of the inbound links for your website, and while Yahoo is more free with this information, they also fail to show anything more than just a small snippet of the number of links you will actually have for your website.

So, if you are truly interested in learning the value that you created with your article marketing campaign, you absolutely have to login to Google's Webmaster Tools to get to the truth of the matter.

But, building links is just one facet of a successful article marketing campaign. There is also the reputation you build for yourself when you teach your readers something of real value in your articles. There is the consistent traffic you can receive to your website when your article is published on a website that has a regular audience. And there is the surges of traffic you can receive to your website when your article is published in a large newsletter.

I have always tried to play straight with folks, so please take this advice as it is intended. If you are only going to do one article to see where article marketing can take you, spend your money on paid advertising instead. But, if you really believe that those of us who have written hundreds of articles do so, because this marketing method works, then make a serious commitment to seeing an article marketing campaign through to success.

About the Author:

Bill Platt has been providing article marketing to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ He offers ghost writing and article distribution services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article writing success that can be found at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Or read his blog at: http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/

Internet Marketers: Will You Quit or Overcome The Obstacles Before You?

By Bill Platt

There is barely an industry on the Internet who has not been touched by those who quit and those who overcome obstacles to success. "Attrition" is a term that describes the "people who quit." I utilize the term "attrition" most often when I am talking about subscribers who leave a newsletter's member list, while others discuss the term in regards to people who quit business opportunities to pursue greener pastures.

Silly Cows and Three-Year-Old Logic

I grew up in rural America, so I fast caught on to the phrase, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Those silly cows can be in a field full of lush, green grass, but it never fails that many of them will strain against the barbed wire fence to reach out for that brown grass outside their enclosure.

My three-year-old once explained to me, "Cows do not have any brains." I told him that of course cows had brains. He insisted they did not. I asked what made him so sure, and he responded, "Well, they don't know how to talk." Ah, the beauty of a child's logic.

Success Online Begins With Commitment

Far too many people on the Internet have yet to figure out how to succeed online, but they are experts in how to quit, before they ever give themselves a chance to succeed. Someone once told me that in network marketing, 80% of all new sign-ups quit one opportunity and move on to the next one, after only two weeks. That is one heck of an "attrition rate".

Success online begins with the acceptance of one simple word, "commitment". Followed closely by commitment is investment. One must invest their time, their heart and soul, and sometimes their financial resources, in order to find the success they desire for themselves.

When I started my current business in 2001, quitting was not in my vocabulary. I started my business with the commitment to stick to my task until I found the success I desired. In March of 2005, I quit my day job (which required 65 hours most weeks, and 90+ hours per week during December) and risked it all on my own belief that I had laid the foundations that would make me successful in the long run. My revenues last year were three times higher than what they were, in the year that I quit working for other people.

After starting my online business, I kept my job for another three-and-a-half years, and then I went solo. I have been flying solo for just over three years now, and each year since leaving my job, I have been met with sales that continue to climb.

I recently did an analysis of my business' growth over the years since I started it. In four of six calendar years, my business grew by more than 100% in just twelve months. For those of you
who are not math-savvy, that means my sales doubled in four of six years - it tripled its sales in its first full year (against a partial-year), and it doubled its sales in its third, fourth and fifth years of operation. My business is in its seventh year of operation. I will have my seventh year anniversary in October of 2008.

Overcoming All Obstacles In Your Path

If I had quit my business opportunity after only two weeks like most people do, I would still be working a job 65 hours per week at a job I mostly hated. But, because I was willing to do what
was required to overcome the obstacles in my path, I now work from my home, available to my children when they need me. I was glad to leave the job world behind, especially during the
Christmas shopping season when I had been required to work 90+ hours per week.

Even now as I write this article, my five-year-old is sitting behind me in my chair as he is fond of doing, and he is watching Spongebob Squarepants as I type. I listen to Spongebob more than
I watch it, but I have to tell you, it is truly a funny cartoon. Spongebob's writers realize that mom and dad watch the show too, so they have been kind enough to include jokes that mom and dad can appreciate too.

Obstacles Fall When You Approach

Commitment, investment and overcoming obstacles will deliver you to success online, but "belief" will carry you forward to greatness. When you begin to believe that certain good things will come your way, the laws of the universe will stand behind you and elevate you to greatness.

The following book titles should be required reading for anyone who strives for greatness in life:

* "Think and Grow Rich" by Napolean Hill

* "The Laws of Success" by Napolean Hill

* "The Magic of Thinking Big" by David J. Schwartz

* "Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life" by Donald J. Trump and Bill Zanker

* "See You At The Top" by Zig Ziglar

Each of these books addresses the concept of creating and possessing a real "belief" in yourself and your potential for success. "The Magic of Thinking Big" is my personal favorite, although the book "Think and Grow Rich" runs a close second place for me.

When you strive for a goal, you can reach it with a lot of hard work. But when you believe that your goal will absolutely be achieved by you, call it "faith" if you will, then there is nothing that could stop you from achieving your hearts' desires.

As you gain levels of success in your business and life, you really should use those successes to strengthen your "belief" in yourself and your capabilities. At first, the "ownership of success" will be hard to accept. But, if you continuously apply your success to the foundations of your belief, you will eventually know in your heart-of-hearts that success is yours to possess.

Do Not Be A Quitter

After two years of failure online, many people will quit this online thing and declare to all of their friends and family that no one can succeed online. The declaration will be made as if to assure the listener that if the speaker could not do it, then no one can.

Let me assure you of one thing. If you try to find success online in the same way that the speaker did, then you too will surely fail. But if you pick a target, commit yourself to reaching for the target, invest yourself fully in achieving your goals, overcome all obstacles that will stand in your way, and finally, believe that success is yours to possess, then you will succeed online as many of us have already done and continue to do today. I will sign-off by swiping a book title from Zig Ziglar, "See you at the top."

About the Author:

Bill Platt has been providing article marketing to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ He offers ghost writing and article distribution services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article writing success. It can be found at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Get More Targeted Traffic To Your Site

By Casey Moher

There are dozens of good ways to send people to your website. These methods come with a wide variety of results and difficulty. As much as possible, I've worked with and tested many of them. Here's a run-down on one that I believe is highly effective.

Give Your Visitors A Free Gift:

Information that can truly be a help to your visitors is a great place to start. The right information can truly make someone's life better.

Overcoming an ever-present hurdle in the form of inherent mis-trust on the part of your visitor will always be with you. Overcoming this hurdle is vital to the success of your venture.

Your focus should be to find and share valuable information. An on-line approach is the most efficient way to find and distribute valuable information. It doesn't take much search time before you will be discovering subjects and information that folks want to know. Once you find the topics being sought-for, you will want to spend your time learning and writing about them.

One strategy you can employ is to share the information in the form of a multi-day mini-course that people can receive from you. You will find more success if you spend the time necessary to
make this a high-quality gift. Extra effort at this point will increase the value of your subscriber list. Very little cash takes you a long way in this project.

You will be offering to share this information in exchange for your visitor's name and e-mail address. The best way to perform this information capture function is to use a 'squeeze page'.
Establishing a squeeze page can readily be done starting with a simple website.

Some very professional design work is available at affordable prices these days. In a very short time, your own squeeze page can be activated and running.

You can have your own squeeze page up and running fast, just let me know. You can move things to auto-pilot function starting with these strategies.

With care, your subscriber list can be cultivated and a long-term relationship built with the members. Your efforts can become continually more rewarding all the time for all concerned as you move forward with this venture.

You can reach people around the entire world and provide them with value using your valuable products, services and information. You can be paid very well in the process.

Here's another way to utilize the power of free information to build good will and interest before a person ever visits your website There are a number of methods, strategies and delivery
formats available to you. Take the time and whatever the minimal expense is to do a professional job.

Remember that your internet visitor is there because of a desire and a need for some basic information. Put their needs first and realize they did not log on looking for an opportunity to send some cash your way. You have to overcome an always-present barrier of doubt in your visitor's mind. Provide valuable information at no cost and you will quickly erode the doubts. Valuable information can be found readily on the internet. You also likely have more information and knowledge of your own than you realize. A quick search of some key-word tools will reveal to you the topics of interest and need of large groups of people.

The whole key to making article writing and publishing work for you lies in NOT trying to sell something to the reader right away. If you write a self-serving article that is really a sales
promotion, it will be very transparent. You will have done more to alienate and push people away than to pull them close. After your article has presented the information, it's fine for you to include a resource box at the end. The resource box gives your name, website address and what the reader will benefit when they visit it.

Everything got much easier in the article-publishing process recently. There is some new software out there that makes the process push-button easy. This program keeps content unique and speeds things up tremendously. Science and industry now have the capacity to produce, publish and distribute articles to thousands of readers.

You will do well to include article publishing and distribution in your long-range strategy. Automation and professional publishing services can reach thousands of readers very quickly.
If you want more information on these useful tools (or anything else in this article), just contact me.

About the Author:

Casey Moher - Caseymoher@... (801) 941-3334

Mr. Moher is a Registered Pharmacist and Life-Long Marketing and Sales Professional. You Can Get His Free Five-Day Mini-Course on Building Targeted Website Traffic by visiting: http://www.newtrafficmaster.com

How To Inspire Yourself To Write Articles Others Will Want To Read

By Bill Platt

Anyone engaged in writing articles for offline publications or online business has occasionally struggled with the question of "What to write?"

Methods To Help The Average Person To Start Writing

Maybe I am just an overly optimistic person. I have always believed that anyone committed to writing an article can write an article. The problem is that most individuals simply do not have the belief in their own skills and insight. That is the reason why we ghost writing lot will always have a job. As long as there are people who doubt their own skills or insights, I will always have a job.

One of my good friends, Clinton Douglas IV(http://www.thephantomwriters.com/recent/author/clinton-douglas-
iv.html), learned the lesson of understanding that he had his own abilities and skills that he could utilize to write his own articles. He learned that he could turn his insight into literature worth reading, by simply calling his favorite ghost writer on the phone (me) and sharing his thoughts on a topic. He was always amazed how it seemed like I could read his thoughts and mind and put his thoughts to paper, even the thoughts that he did not mention specifically to me.

Most people simply don't have a favorite ghost writer on the other end of a telephone call. For them, they should sit down to the computer and type and type and type, with little to no regard for proper spelling, grammar, or storytelling. The first draft should always be used to get one's thoughts out of the brain and down on paper. Spelling, grammar and wording can be fixed during the editing process.

My friend Clinton utilizes this technique on occasion too. He wrote an article one time, by just spilling his brain onto the page. He wrote from his heart and got his thoughts all out of his head. When done, he sent me his final draft for editing. Sure, there were many words that were fixed, a lot of bad grammar that was corrected, and wording that was massaged, before we found the final product. Once written by him and edited, we put his
(http://www.thephantomwriters.com/free_content/db/d/3:10-to-yuma- lessons-learned.shtml) "3:10 to Yuma" article out on the World Wide Web. Almost immediately, my friend Clinton started receiving compliments for his story. Many said it was very inspirational.

I believe in your ability to write your own articles, even if you do not.

Even if you can never bring yourself to write your own articles, that is fine, since we professional ghost writers are happy to write for you.

How Professional Writers Find Inspiration

When it is time to sit down to write an article, we professionals sit down and start reading. Inspiration is a thought that comes to our mind while we are reading information on our target topic. Our thought is never to rewrite what other writers are talking about. Instead, our inspired thought is often an extension of the words we read that were penned by our peers.

How many times have you been reading something written by someone else, and you felt that the author should have ventured off on a tangent that he or she left hanging? Inspiration often occurs rght here in this moment, at that very intersection of this thought.

Once you know the question left unanswered by another writer, then you will have found your own direction and inspiration for writing your next article.

Answer The Unanswered Question and More...

When you want to use articles to promote your online business, it is not enough to answer the unanswered question. You actually need to venture a bit further afield and to ask yourself one very important question: Is the person most likely to buy your product or service also interested in having this question answered?

When you write for promotion purposes, you should always try to speak to the hearts and minds of the people most likely to buy what you are selling. If your potential clients are asking the
same questions as you are, then you know what questions you need to answer for your readers. It is in answering questions important to your customers, where you will begin to find real success using promotional articles to promote your business.

Help your customers answer questions they want answered, and they will help you to earn the sales you need to keep your doors open to others.

Final Note About Inspiration and The Writing Process

This article began as a blog post, written in a blog I contribute to weekly:
http://articlecontentprovider.com/article-marketing-blog/2008/06/22/where-does-inspiration-come-from/

I often write a blog post as my first draft of an idea. Then I massage the message to make it worthy as a promotional article, an article to be read by a larger audience.

Sometimes my first draft is an answer to someone who asked me a question about my service. I answer his or her question from the hip, then I copy-and-paste my answer to a word document and massage the copy for a public audience.

Many times, this first-draft, second-draft process has helped me to create some of the very best articles I have written. Due to the fact that my original article draft is put together as an answer to a question that one of my potential clients had, it permits me to write an article that answers a question that many of my other potential customers may also be thinking.

In answering questions for the larger audience, I have found great success for myself in article marketing. Given a little bit of motivation and commitment, you can make my processes work for you too, to build your own success online.

About the Author:

Bill Platt has been providing article marketing to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ He offers ghost writing and article distribution services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article writing success that can be found at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Drive Immediate, Targeted Traffic with the Mother of All Pay Per Clicks

By Ivy Liu

Do you want to drive massive targeted traffic to you site instantly? We have used GOTo several times for our marketing campaigns and have found it to be indispensible. There are several other pay per click engines, but GOTo is #1 with its numerous partner advertising networks like MSN, Dogpile, America Online, EarthLink, CNET, Netscape and many more.

Nowadays, it takes weeks and even months to get listed at traditional search engines. That's why pay per clicks are so popular for delivering immediate results. We use regularly GOTo to test individual campaigns and new launches. Although we did have experience some administrative delays, overall we are extremely happy with the results.

The beauty of GOTo is that is it extremely cost effective as you only pay when a highly targeted
prospect clicks on your link. The secret of an affordable and successful GOTo campaign is to bid only a few cents for each search term. By having hundreds of search terms that are only costing you a few cents each, you can explode traffic to your site.

My secret market research weapon is GOTo's great Term Suggestion Tool at
http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/searchInventory.mp.

Think GOTo is just another pay per click? Think again! You can use this indispensible tool to do
market research on the most popular search terms. Although it just counts GOTo's search terms, you can multiply that traffic many times over if you use those same terms for other search engines.

Set a maximum price limit of $0.01 - $0.10 for click throughs, and use the GoTo.com Power Submitter Spreadsheet at http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers/powerform.jhtml
This is a great resource as you can download it and use it to enter in hundreds of relevant terms and bids easily. It may take some time to research and enter all the terms, but it is really well worth it!

By using these tools and submitting 100+ keywords, we were able to generate hundreds of visits and leads within a couple days!

Remember that GOTo is a tool. It can enormously help you promote your business and services quickly. Whether those visitors convert or buy is up to you and your marketing process. But at least you don't have to wait to test out your campaigns affordably.

If you haven't tried it yet, what are you waiting for? They are running a special promotion now till October 31, 2000 where you can sign up and get a FREE $10 welcome credit to test it out yourself!

Sign up and get your $10 credit now at: https://www.goto.com/s/p/standard/?project=friendsAd&amount=99&promoCode=B105&source=61820

About the Author:

Ivy Liu owns several web sites including:
http://www.iMarketingSource.com,
http://www.iMarketingResource.com and
http://www.NYCareerWoman.com.

She also publishes two bi-monthly Internet Marketing ezines, the free iMarketingSource Letter and the subscription-based iMarketingSource Infopreneur. She has been on the Internet and developing web sites since 1996. Her experience in business and technology consulting gives her a unique perspective on finding effective ways to use the Internet to provide business solutions. Subscribe to the free iMarketingSource Letter ezine and get 2 months of free advertising and free ebooks. http://imarketingsource.netfirms.com/free.htm

SEO ROI vs Other Marketing Mediums

By Toronto SEO Guru

Every type of business needs to showcase their product or service to their discerning customers in order to induce or motivate purchase. Purchase yields profit, and profit produce Return on Investment or ROI. The core objective of any business is to achieve the best return on their investment.

To obtain the best results, businesses should have a well-defined business plan supported by an appropriate budget. Having these tools put in place, the next question will be the venture to employ the available budget for optimal results. Do you choose SEO as your primary medium or would other more traditional mediums yield better results?

The purposes of marketing are diverse. These include revenue generation, increasing market share, influencing preference over other brands, building brand equity and building brand awareness among other things. Studying competition from all its angles including the marketing communication strategy adopted by them will guide you through the process of investing your marketing budget into the right medium.

Your prospective customers face a bombardment of advertisements through various media in their daily lives. They are naturally inclined to filter out most of it before arriving at the buying decision. To really stand out from the crowd, you need to be extremely different and of course have a huge advertising budget.

Why not make things easier on yourself and follow the logical step of placing your marketing message where the customer is already looking for it? This is the logic that racks up huge points for SEO versus traditional marketing mediums.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO scores over almost every other medium in terms of ROI. To understand the reason, it is essential to have an overview of how search engines work and how to get the best out of them.

When a customer decides to buy goods or services, he or she uses the Internet search engines to provide the customer with the information on the quality, pricing, warranty, after sales service etc, of the particular product. More often than not, the customer will be provided with a list of several thousand web sites with the information he or she needs.

In effect, most individuals will look at the first ten or 15 sites for the information they need. When they are finished with the 10-15 sites, their buying decision would have been finalized. Getting into the first 10 to 15 positions is what SEO is about and several tools are available to achieve this.

The global character of the Search Engines affords you the opportunity of your product/service being accessible to customers round the clock all through the year. The numbers that an SE optimized website can provide in terms of sales and profit will naturally be several times higher than any other media or perhaps all of them put together.

The limitations of time zones, language, overbearing influences (like positioning in a magazine) are absent in the case of search engines. You will no doubt have to spend a decent sum of money to get your marketing message optimized for search engines. This would not only be an investment for a very long time to come. Rather, it would also bring you the best Return on Investment at a fraction of the cost of traditional mediums.

About The Author:

Toronto SEO http://www.searchengineoptimizationtoronto.com/ SEO services provider in Toronto Ccanada

Why You Should Use HTML Web Templates?

By Sharon Housley

Web templates expedite the process of setting up a new website. The idea behind a web template is that it will save time with the creative design and layout process.

In the business world, time is money; hence, using templates can save money. It can be a challenge to find a web designer for hire, and quite often the designer's schedule will not always mesh with the needs of a small business. Time rarely controls a web graphic designer. Artists are, well, artistic, and don't necessarily work by the clock. Instead, they work when inspiration strikes, which can be problematic when there are deadlines to meet. Templates are ready-made, and can be easily edited, allowing you to instantly create a website.

In addition, webmasters that may lack adequate graphic or design skills can quickly and easily create a website themselves, simply by editing and customizing the existing HTML layout in a web template. And locating a themed web template takes far less time than attempting to create a layout and graphics from scratch. Web templates also remove any coding issues. This is especially helpful to webmasters who are just starting out and just learning HTML coding.

The bottom line is that webmasters who use web templates will have their websites up and running much quicker.

Where To Find Webmaster Templates?

Locating a web template that meets your business or personal needs doesn't have to be difficult. There are online directories and galleries, most of which are categorized into themes or by industries. For example, a variety of themed and generic templates can be found at Webmaster Templates: http://www.webmaster- templates.net .

Other web templates can be found HTML Templates Sources -
http://www.small-business-software.net/html-web-templates.htm .

What Is A Good Template, And What Is Not?

Differentiating between a good template and a not-so-good template can be difficult for an amateur. A beginner should have no issues editing the basic HTML layout, but some of the more complex graphic templates and web designs can be difficult for a novice to manipulate. If you are a beginner, stick with HTML-based templates, which can be edited with a common HTML editor, until you get the hang of web design.

How Can Templates Be Edited?

It depends on the format of the web template, but in most cases the web templates available online can be edited using common HTML editors such as DreamWeaver, FrontPage, or Web Express. The graphics can be edited in any type of imaging application such as PaintShop Pro, Gimp, or PhotoShop. Some templates will also use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to control and standardize things like font sizes and colors across all web pages. These CSS files can be edited using a CSS editor like TopStyle.

What Should I Look For In A Ready-Made Web Template?

Web templates should be editable in any HTML editor.

What Am I Allowed And Not Allowed To Do With The Templates?

Different templates are licensed for different purposes and with different restrictions. You must carefully read the licensing agreement on the template's website to determine how the template can be used. Most licenses allow templates to be modified and customized. Some licenses stipulate that the templates are for personal use only, and not for commercial use, so be careful there.

Web templates offer webmasters a great opportunity to minimize development time and get new sites on the web sooner rather than later. The structure of web templates allow webmasters to focus on the proprietary content development, and optimizing the website for
search engines, rather than struggling with layout and graphics.

About the Author:

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

The Mythical Google Sandbox And How To Escape It

By Bill Platt

With an article title like this, it almost seems like I am playing the fool, by telling you something doesn't exist and then telling you that I will show you how to beat that thing I said does not exist. Maybe I am the fool, or maybe, I have something valuable to share with you today. You be the judge.

I Don't Believe In The Google Sandbox, Dragons or Unicorns...

I was browsing the Digital Point forums earlier, when I came across this quote:

"The Google Sandbox is something that people either believe or don't believe. It usually means that within the first 6 months - 1 year you won't get a lot of love from Google." -
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=8286280

I saw the quote shown above and I had a good laugh. Yes, many people believe in the existence of the Google Sandbox, and I am not one of those people. I place the "Google Sandbox" in the same category as the leprechaun... they both make a neat children's story, but I see no truth in either.

What Is Google Love?

Google love is the imaginary "feeling" that Google has for the websites in its index. The more Google loves a website, the higher that website will rank in the Google search results.

No matter how many search results Google shows for a particular search term, Google will only show a maximum of 1,000 website listing in its search engine result pages (SERPs). However, few people, except nuts like me know that as you go to each consecutive page in Google's SERPs, the actual number that Google is willing to show you gets smaller with each additional page visited.

For example, I just did a search on the keyword phrase "Google Love". My default Google settings are set to 100 results. When I first typed the search phrase, Google showed 68,300,000 results, and Google shows me that I can look at ten pages of results. But, when I get to the tenth page in Google's results, there are only three listings. Google only loves 903 web pages for the search term "Google Love".

Google has told us that they attribute value to a web page, based on the number of inbound links that page might have. Google Love primarily comes from link popularity, which is derived from inbound links.

The Suggested Lifespan Of The Google Sandbox

I see the "sandbox" as being a term that some person working in SEO derived to explain why so many of his client's new pages appeared in Google's search results for about one month, before the pages disappeared into the deep recesses of the Google index.

In absence of a better explanation, some SEO person coined the term "Google Sandbox" to explain to his or her customers why a page disappears from the Google index and stays missing for months or years.

According to those who preach the Google Sandbox theory, the lifespan of the Sandbox is six months to one year. That is a lifetime when you are running an online business.

The Life Curve Of A Web Page

Google's algorithms rely heavily on inbound links to determine the value of a web page. But a brand new web page has not had the opportunity to attract any inbound links, because after all, it is a brand new web page. So Google gives new web pages the benefit of a doubt.

News stories are a good example of web pages that may very well be important to the world-at-large, but its importance cannot be determined by the number of inbound links available to that page.

As a result, all brand new web pages on the Internet are given an intrinsic value by Google, as if the pages housed a news story. But what was important thirty days ago, will not necessarily be important today. So news stories are given early value and then their value fades with time.

Once the news cycle is completed, the web page will slide down to where it deserves to be according to the normal Google algorithms. This often means that a new web page will disappear
into Google oblivion (or the theoretical Google Sandbox), if after 30 days the page has not generated any link popularity of its own.

After The News Cycle, All Normal Rules Apply

We have all heard it before. The way to get a web page to rank in Google is to build link popularity for the web page.

And how do you build link popularity for a web page? Build inbound links to that web page, of course.

Once the news cycle is done, a new web page must compete with every other web page, based on Google's normal algorithm.

What If A Page Could Develop Link Popularity In 30 Days?

What if you were able to build inbound links and therefore link popularity for a web page, before the news cycle runs out? That would be a twist, wouldn't it?

Personally, I know for a fact that if you can build link popularity on a page, within the news cycle window, that this new page will not fall into the dreaded and mythical Google Sandbox. The page will not fall into the Google Sandbox at the end of the news cycle, because the page will have already accrued some link popularity within Google's primary algorithm.

You Are The Master Of Your Own Domain

As the master of your domain, you get to choose how long a page is sandboxed. Most people don't realize they have that kind of control, but with smart link building, one can prevent a web page from entering the sandbox. Or, if the web page does slip into the sandbox, the smart online marketer can bring a web page out of the mythical sandbox in days or weeks, instead of months or years. The beauty of this truth is that you define the time line for when a web page exits the sandbox, not Google.

I Boast That I Can Prove It To You

I built a new page 16 days ago (June 10th, 2008) that is holding page one results in Google against 200,000+ websites, with my Blackhat Fish SEO Contest entry.
(http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/whitehat-vs-blackhat-fish- for-links-or-die-trying/2008/06/10/)

Now, one could argue that I am still in the news cycle for this web page, so in another two weeks, my page could disappear from the Google results. But, I have built so many inbound links to this page that I fully expect that when the news cycle is done, my page will remain outside of Google's mythical sandbox.

I Challenge You To Test My Results

Test my proof by checking back here in a couple weeks, or even in four weeks or six. If I am right, you will be able to click this link to Google's search results for the keyword phrase Blackhat Fish (http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=blackhat+fish), and you will be able to see my page title on page one or two of Google's search results: "Whitehat vs. Blackhat: Fish For Links or Die Trying".

I say page one or page two of Google's search results, because I would be surprised if I actually won the competition. However, if I am still in the top20 results for the search key term after July 10, 2008, then I will have proved to you that anyone can beat the sandbox, if only they exercised the right strategy for escaping the sandbox ahead of the end of the news cycle.

I have actually pulled this off with three web pages in the last 60 days. The above listed example is just one of many examples I could show you as proof of concept here. But for brevity's sake, I am only including the one example here.

In Conclusion...

You can accept my analysis as sound, or you can call me the fool. It does not matter to me which you choose. If you want to believe that the Google Sandbox really exists to thwart your online business, then more power to your fears.

For those of you who have found my words worthwhile, let's meet next Saint Patrick's' Day to share a green beer and a laugh.

About the Author:

Bill Platt has been providing article marketing to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ He offers ghost writing and article distribution services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article marketing strategies at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html

Read Bill's blog at: http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/

ROI: The Only Number That Matters

By Ken Daniells

Have you gotten bogged down with numbers that don't matter?

The success of your direct mail campaign is ultimately measured, not by bounce-backs or number of responses, but by one simple number: your return on investment (ROI). As the owner of your business, you must know this number for every marketing campaign you run.

You may believe every campaign number is important--list size, bounce-backs, leads generated, number of responses, number of appointments, and number of sales. At the end of the day, there's only one number that can tell you if your campaign was a success or a failure.

This might sound unrealistic; you may wonder if you can really judge an entire campaign based on one number. To illustrate this reality, we'll examine two real-world examples, and then we'll look at how you can measure ROI for yourself.

Let's start by taking a look at two very different campaigns. As we go through them, decide, if you were the business owner in each, would you consider the campaign a success?

* Lots of sales, small profit each. In our first example, Jon sells a paperback book. He sells copies at a $2 profit. He sent out 10,000 postcards at a cost of $3700. As a result of that campaign, he sold 1500 books which is a 15% response rate. But because his profit on each book is only $2, he actually lost $700 on the campaign.

* Few sales, big profit each. Peter offers home mortgage services. His average income per new home mortgage is $5000. He sent out 30,000 postcards at a cost of $9800. As a result of that campaign, he closed five additional home mortgages which is a paltry 0.001% response rate. However, because his profit on each home mortgage is $5000, he actually profited $15,200 after his campaign costs.

If you were Jon, you might have considered the campaign a success because of the high response rate. Knowing what you know now about the actual dollar value of the campaign, though, do you think Jon should repeat the mailing?

Commonly, business owners make the mistake of judging a campaign based on the response rate, instead of the profit involved. And if Peter were to make that same mistake, he would miss out on repeating his $15,200 success.

Now that you understand the importance of looking at your ROI as opposed to focusing on the other campaign numbers, let's walk through the process of the actual calculation. Don't worry, it's not nearly as complicated as it might sound.

1. Get out your numbers. Gather your numbers from your last postcard campaign. Because this is a new formula for you, you may not have every number you'll need and may need to estimate some of them.

2. Fill in the blanks. Using BOOM! Ink's online calculator or this formula, plug in the numbers from your last campaign.

* ([Average profit per sale] * [Number of sales from campaign]) - [Campaign expenses] = [Profit] * ([Average profit per sale] * [Number of sales from campaign])/[Campaign expenses] =[ROI %]

Armed with your ROI from your most recent campaigns, you'll be able to make smart decisions about which campaigns are worth repeating and which are ready for retirement. Keep this formula in mind and you'll watch future campaigns flourish.

Make good use of what you know about ROI to BOOM your business!

About the Author:

Ken Daniells helps business owners and organizations to increase income and profits using practical, but often overlooked marketing basics. He is the founder of BOOM! Ink, a marketing company dedicated to helping small business owners market effectively and grow. For more free articles, tips and advice, visit http://www.boomink.com

----------
This article is distributed on behalf of the author by
http://SubmitYOURArticle.com
SubmitYOURArticle.com is a trading name of Takanomi Limited.
Takanomi Limited is a limited company registered in England and
Wales.
Registered number: 5629683. Registered office: 31 St Saviourgate,
York YO1 8NQ.
Full contact details are at http://takanomi.com
----------

--- End forwarded message ---

Staying On Task With Your Home Based Business

By Dustin Heath Cannon

Working from home may have always been a dream for you. It is a great way to stay home and tend to things that happen there, as well as cut down on commuting and saving gas, in a time when gas prices are higher than they have been in recent years. A home based business means that you are available when you family needs you, but that added availability can be difficult when you are working to complete a number of tasks for your business. Disruptions can happen in any work environment, but may happen more often if you work from home. If you become easily distracted, it may be very difficult to focus on the business tasks at hand, when you know that you need to start cooking dinner, or have several loads of laundry to wash.

Having an area that you work in that is away from these types of disruptions can help to ease your destructibility. Having your desk or computer set up in a room that is only for your business can help you to focus on the tasks that need to be completed that day or in the near future. Letting family members know that when you are in your office or at your computer, they should not disturb you, can help to keep them from asking questions or diverting your attention from your work. If you do not have the option to having your own room, you should consider moving your work into an area of the house that does not receive a considerable amount of traffic. Trying to work at 3 p.m. in the kitchen, when the kids are getting out of school and heading in for a snack may cause you to focus on them or making their snack, instead of working.

Set up a schedule for yourself that you strictly adhere to. Training yourself to work during certain hours of the day can keep you focused on working during those hours. Knowing that you
will be able to work on housework daily from 2 to 5 pm, will cause you to not stress about getting the house cleaned or dinner cooked before your spouse comes home. This can also allow your family to give you those specific hours you have allotted to work during, without distractions. This also means that you should not work on your business other than the hours you have set aside to work on. Creating a to-do list can help also. You will be able to see when important deadlines are, and how best to complete the tasks in a timely manner.

Allowing yourself to not become distracted can help to improve your business and your will help to improve your home life as well.

About The Author:

Dustin Cannon, of Next Level Enterprises, LLC is a successful Internet marketer working with top leaders in the home business and Internet marketing industry. For more information on a Coastal Vacations Marketing CoOp visit: http://www.CoopForCoastal.com

Repetition: What You Need to Know About Marketing Success

By Ken Daniells

Are you stopping before you get the results that will revolutionize your business?

Building one postcard upon the last creates a haven for your customers. It builds their interest in your business until they're ready to buy. This is the true power of a marketing campaign--one postcard enriches previous cards until they crescendo into a marketing campaign.

The key to most success is persistence, and marketing is no different. If you want your business to be successful, you must market continuously.

* Golden Nugget #1: The marketplace is noisy. The average American is exposed to more than 5,000 marketing messages a day (Yankelovich, Inc.). This makes repetition crucial--your audience will hardly notice your message the first time you send it.

* Golden Nugget #2: Repetition delivers sales. Successive postcard mailings deliver nearly twice the response of the first card. If your first mailing results in 30 sales, 60 or more may result from a subsequent mailing. That makes repeated mailings smart budgeting.

* Golden Nugget #3: Someone's not ready. Sending more than one postcard to the same audience increases your chances of catching people when they need what you're offering. Most of the time, no response from a prospect means "no for now." Mail to that list again and you'll find new buyers.

* Golden Nugget #4: Don't stop mailing too soon. Experts advise mailing to a list at least three times before calling it a dud. As long as you're getting a high ROI, there's no reason to stop mailing to that list.

* Golden Nugget #5: Building trust takes time. People need time to start to trust you. Successful marketing relies on the KLT factor--Know, Like, Trust. Reach out to the same list and build that KLT factor over time.

Allow your campaign to grow over time. Patiently build that KLT factor for your list. Each additional postcard will bring in profits, and by the time you've come to the end of your marketing campaign, your ROI will be considerably higher.

Now that you're committed to repetition, how often should you mail? Experts suggest sending postcards every 4 to 6 weeks to keep your business "top of mind." This top-of-mind placement will translate into more sales.

If every 4-6 weeks is too often, mail at least 4 to 6 times a year. That will keep your message front and center and help you leverage each mailing into greater profits.

Mailing less frequently works, of course, but mailing more often lets each postcard build on the last, leading to exponential returns on your investment.

Ultimately, repetition is the golden nugget that makes the difference between a successful postcard and a postcard that brings a BOOM! of business through the doors.

About the Author:

Ken Daniells helps business owners and organizations to increase income and profits using practical, but often overlooked marketing basics. He is the founder of BOOM! Ink, a marketing company dedicated to helping small business owners market effectively and grow. For more free articles, tips and advice, visit http://www.boomink.com.

Advertisers Target Customers With Affiliates

By J. Harding

By J. Harding

When companies are trying to get their online businesses growing, many are learning that turning to affiliates can improve their online presence. Since the introduction of the newspaper in the 19th century, companies have communicated with potential customers with advertising, but in a global economy, it takes global advertising to reach them all. When you are open to this idea and know how to make the most of it you may see your business success increase.

Many websites have found they can increase their advertising without increasing their advertising budget by offering other websites a commission on sales that they send to the online store. There is no cost to the company until the ad produces, as opposed to traditional advertising in which the company pays for the ad without any guarantee they will see a return on their investment. As the print and broadcast media continues to consolidate there are fewer companies with which to deal, resulting in higher prices and less competition for advertising dollar.

Additionally, traditionally advertising methods are limited in their audience, typically missing a large segment of a business's targeted demographic. A business without an online presence can also benefit from targeted ads, but the means are limited to their local advertising outlets.

When a company wants to reach a global audience, it is recommended they use the same media their internet customers use…internet advertising. This present a couple of challenges in that with traditional ads there is no way to tell which advertising destination is working and the cost. Companies cannot be sure they are getting the best bang for their advertising buck. This can seem like an overwhelming challenge but it is one worth taking on.

The best affiliate marketing programs are designed to allow companies to place ads on their affiliates' sites for free. They pay a commission for the ads if a visitor to that site goes to their website and makes a purchase. Typically, this commission is on a percentage basis and while many may not offer huge dollars, there are a few that offer much higher commissions based on the cost of the product or service being offered.

For the company trying to expand their offerings to the most customers possible, the use of affiliate programs can help them achieve their goal with a low initial cost. Allowing the affiliates the freedom to choose the size and style of the ads is more attractive to more affiliates and offering a decent commission will make them want to become a productive affiliate site.

The best affiliate marketing programs will want to market their own site to have more visitors to send to the companies' sites of which they are an affiliate. A company that has thousands of affiliates spread around the globe will have thousands of more marketing opportunities to reach a much larger audience. Most affiliates are savvy in the ways of internet marketing and will focus their efforts to the best audience that may be interested in visiting their affiliated companies.

About The Author:

John Harding is the webmaster for Best Affiliate Markets blog. Sign up for a free Home Business Newsletter to receive more money making tips and a free home business e-book. http://www.eCommerceRevolution.blogger.com

Protecting Yourself And Your Business From The Unexpected

By Dustin Heath Cannon

Protecting the financial interests of any business that you own, should be very important to you. Finding ways to accomplish this may be time consuming or difficult if you are not sure which steps to take. Attempting to prepare for those unexpected events in your home business takes plenty of planning, and being proactive on the part of yourself and your business partners. There are several things that you can do to prepare your business for the unexpected.

Having Insurance that is appropriate and personalized for you and your business is one of the key steps to preparing for the unexpected. There are numerous types of insurance that you can purchase; however, the state you live in may require you to have certain types of policies or a set minimal limit for your business. This works like your automobile or home owners insurance. It may be in your best interest to speak with a professional insurance agent to discuss the type of business that you run and what options are best suited for your business. Different insurance agencies will have their own rules for the types of policies that you must purchase, such as how long you must keep the policy, or discounts that you may receive after a certain amount of time. Depending on the type of product that you sell or services that you have, you may need to purchase insurance on those products. You may need to purchase extra insurance on your home, if clients will be stopping into your home in regards to the sales and services that your home business offers.

Purchasing short and long term disability insurance is also a good idea. Many people are living from one paycheck to the next, and accidents can and will occur. Having this kind of coverage for yourself can ensure that your bills will continue to be paid if you are unable to work for a short amount of time. Another good idea, incase something does occur where you are unable to work is to keep a manual that describes in detail your job tasks and how to perform them. Be sure to include important phone numbers or deadlines that must be kept incase of an emergency. Remember to update your manual frequently, as job tasks can change quickly or as software is updated.

No one likes to consider the thought of dying, but incidents do happen. If you are the business owner, others need to know what your intentions are and who will take over running the business. Having a will, can help your family and your business partners quickly and efficiently resolve matters that may arise regarding money, property or other matters. Being prepared for the unexpected can make you feel safer and take any added strain off of you and your family.

About The Author:

Dustin Cannon, of Next Level Enterprises, LLC is a successful Internet marketer working with top leaders in the home business and Internet marketing industry. For more information on the Coastal Vacations business visit: http://www.EarnOnVacation.com

Are You Trying To Do It All Yourself?

By Bernadette Doyle

It's said that the most effective person is not necessarily the one who does the most, but the one who gets the most done.

Knowing the difference between the two means the difference between being stressed and busy and never feeling like there are enough hours in the day and a sense of ever increasing accomplishment, as you marvel at just how much you can achieve when you get out of your own way.

It seems to me that most business owners fall into 'Do-It-Yourself-It is' - even when we understand the importance of working ON the business versus IN the business. Several years ago, having done my time employing people (and feeling that I was working for them rather than they were working for me!), I made the decision to create a 'lifestyle business', one that I could operate with a laptop from anywhere in the world, without the overhead of office space or employees.

The mistake I made at first was that I thought no employees meant no help at all! It's an easy mistake to make. If you don't have a lot of cash when starting out, it may seem easier to do
it yourself rather than hire help. And sometimes you may be reluctant to hand over tasks that you think nobody else can do as well as you!

But then I learned about 'virtual assistants' - the essential ingredient for everyone who wants to create a 'lifestyle' business. Because a VA only charges you for the hours he or she actually works, rates may be more than you'd pay an administrative employee (usually £20-30 per hour or $30-50 dollars per hour), and of course you don't have the added expenses of employee benefits, office space, and equipment.

Today I have several different assistants dotted around the world ready to leap in and help me with specific parts of my business as and when I need them. I honestly don't know how I managed for so long without them.

So this week I'd to share with you tips for assembling your own 'dream team':

1. Decide what can only be done by you and what can be handed over.

You have unique skills and parts of your business that only you can and should take care of. The more you are able to focus on those things, the stronger and faster your business will grow.

2. Understand the value of investing in help.

As wise man once said to me, if you want to make hundreds per hour, why get bogged down in penny-paying jobs? Are there things like updating webpages, bookkeeping, handling routine emails that could be better handled by someone else? Trying to avoid paying someone to do these things for you by doing them yourself is false economy, as these task will sap your energy and create mental clutter. Getting these things off your 'to do' list is liberating!

3. Find the right people.

Somewhere in the world there is someone who knows how to do the jobs you want to get off your 'to-do' list, and not just that, they even enjoy doing them! My favourite places to find 'virtual assistants' that you can hire by the hour are http://www.elance.com and http://www.assistu.com. You can find people to work on an as-needed basis from their own homes or offices, saving you the cost and hassle of hiring an office assistant.

4. Know the difference between delegating and abdicating.

Sometimes it is such a relief to find someone to take care of the things that you've been dreading, that you just hope that someone else will fix or take care of things for you. That's
abdicating. When you delegate you retain responsibility for the outcome. You will be most tempted to 'abdicate' those parts of your business that you don't understand or enjoy. Make sure you both have a clear understanding of the desired end result, and that the person you are hiring knows how to do accomplish what you want them to do. Ask for references and proof that they have the skills they say they do.

5. Learn to let go!

For many business owners, the hardest part is trusting another person to care as much as we do, or do it as well as (we think) we can. Want to know the truth? When you assemble your 'dream team' of virtual assistants you will be surprised, amazed and delighted at how much better things go when you stop interfering!

The bottom line is outsourcing will free up your time immensely, allowing you to focus on the stuff that matters: developing your business, creating new ideas and income streams, and servicing your larger clients. You'll think much bigger and will have much more creative energy. I guarantee it!

So what can you outsource, starting today?

The first place to start is with those things that give you that 'sinking feeling' when you think about them. Keep track of tasks and activities for one week, and then go through and highlight the jobs that could be handed over. Make a plan for hiring the right helpers, and feel your energy soar!

About the Author:

Bernadette Doyle publishes her free, weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them then sign up at http://www.clientmagnets.com today!