Your Network Marketing Site Black Listed By Search Engines?

In today's world, it seems that almost any topic is open for debate. While I was gathering facts for this article, I was quite surprised to find some of the issues I thought were settled are actually still being openly discussed.

Which Internet marketer has not heard the horror stories of the multi level marketing (MLM) newbie who struck out for her- or himself without much help from an up line and probably also by disregarding each and every ounce of good advice offered by many a website and tutorial and instead built a website advertising the product or service for sale? Yet to the fledgling marketer’s surprise, no hits are being registered and in spite of tweaking and pruning the site every which way from Sunday, the traffic is still only trickling in, most of it being accidental rather than targeted. The sad reality is simple: unbeknown st to the new network marketer, the lovingly crafted site she or he spent so much time working on was blacklisted! Do not let search engines blacklist your network marketing product site!

Granted, the fledgling marketer from the example above probably was not quite as pure as the driven snow and instead may have engaged, wittingly or unwittingly, in some rather shady online practices which most major search engines will view as an immediate reason to blacklist the site. Here are some examples:

* Perhaps the most egregious offense is the use of irrelevant keywords within the website’s metatags or even within the body of the site just to generate more hits. Thus, if you are working on promotion a network marketing product related to wellness, the inclusion of several highly searched key terms, such as cancer, heart attack, stroke, and various other ailments will get you blacklisted, especially if the wellness product is not at all tangentially related to any of these conditions.

Knowledge can give you a real advantage. To make sure you're fully informed about black listed by search engines, keep reading.

* Submitting a website manually or automatically time and again to the same search engine is considered spamming. In the past it was done to ensure a higher ranking of the site, but with the modernization of the process, search engines are very sensitive to being spammed. Do it one too many times and your site will no longer be included in the search results.

* Beware the lure of the mirror site. Once again, this methodology is a blast from the past when it was thought to guarantee a higher ranking within the search engine’s ranking hierarchy. Yet with the advent of optimization procedures, mirror sites are considered to be a relic of the past and those who continue to utilize the technology that in the past allowed them to submit the exactly identical site with a different URL to a search engine will find that neither web address will be accepted.

There are a number of other tips, tricks, and schemes employed by those who design websites for their network marketing product. Do not fall for the lure of easy rankings at the expense of the integrity of your site. It is not just the search engine robots that catch on to your shenanigans, but it is also a more and more technologically astute populace that will realize your ploy and thus you will instantly lose a massive dose of credibility. This, in the Internet marketing business, is the death knell which must be avoided at all costs!

Of course, it's impossible to put everything about black listed by search engines into just one article. But you can't deny that you've just added to your understanding about black listed by search engines, and that's time well spent.

Copyright © Le Tuan Anh

Your Own Home Business - 5 Reasons To Bless The Internet

The rapid expansion of the Internet has made it possible for more people than ever before to have their own home business. People who once would have been forced to take low paid employment outside the home (or be unable to find any work at all) are now able to work at home and make money online. Without the Internet few of these people would have been able to start their own home business because the cost of doing so would have been out of their reach. Here are my top five reasons to be grateful for the Internet.

1. Freedom

This just has to be the number one reason for practically anybody who has a successful home business. You have complete freedom to come and go as you please. You can work the hours you choose. If you need time off, you don't have to beg for it. If you want to change your schedule, you can just do it. You can spend quiet moments during the day reflecting upon how lucky you are to have no boss watching your every move.

2. Flexibility

Flexibility is a close second with most people who work at home. Many people who work at home, chose a home business because they needed flexible hours to fit in with family commitments. Most of these home business owners are women who chose to stay at home to look after their kids instead of going back to work and entrusting the care of their children to strangers after school and during vacation time.

3. Doing Something You Enjoy

Starting your own home business means you get to choose what you work at and you can then do something you enjoy all day long. You can't run a home business without doing some hard work but, when you are working at something you enjoy, it doesn't seem like work. There are bound to be some routine tasks that aren't particularly exciting but, even the odd boring chore, won't get you down when you are your own boss. You can always look forward to the day your business has grown enough for you to take on an assistant and delegate the routine stuff.

4. Variety

When you are a home business owner, you won't be doing the same tasks day after day. As an employee you would have your own set tasks allocated to you by your manager, but being your own boss means you get to do all manner of different things and learn the new skills you might require as a first time business owner.

5. Being your own boss

Being your own boss means you get to do what you like, keep all the profits you earn and take vacations as and when you please, but there is another intangible benefit that you will enjoy: just being your own boss will alter the way you feel about yourself. Being your own boss will give you extra confidence in your abilities and your self-assurance will increase to the extent that other people will notice it and react towards you accordingly.

When you make money online, be grateful for the fact that you live in this technological age and thank the Internet for your chance to start your own home business.

Your Own Online Training Site...

It isn’t really as hard as it sounds. Let’s get rid of all those things that are hard to do. If you don’t know how to design and construct a website from scratch, you can use desktop publishing software that makes it easier to construct a website. Another option is to have your website designed by a professional. Professional website designers have a more mature outlook in designing websites. Furthermore, you are given guarantees that the website they constructed for you will not suddenly collapse or malfunction.

Now, the first thing to do is to determine what kind of instruction you will give in your website. Pattern your website after your topic of instruction so that you have a themed look to your website. If you are a mechanic, try having some pictures of tools or maybe a tire included on the site as part of the background wallpaper or in the video instruction section of the website. Next, you will need those instructional videos for your viewing public. Begin by writing a script for your instructional spiel. Divide your script with respect to the stages or levels of your instruction topic. Determine the price you will charge for your educational video service. Once you are done, you can embed the video into your website and see the final product.

If you are satisfied with what you’ve done so far, you can look for a website hosting service provider. Mind you, some website hosting providers will design the site for you for a fee if you so wish it. Aside from website hosting fees, you will have to pay for domain name fees as well as other charges that the website hosting company deems fair to charge you. Also, you need to be specific about the bandwidth that your hosting provider will give you. This is to ensure that your video streams will not slow down due to heavy user traffic.

Now that you are ready to start selling, you need to have a place where you can deposit your online cash. You will have to open a merchant account in a bank and have the bank and the hosting provider configure your website so that the payments you receive are forwarded to your merchant account.

Don’t be nervous. This will probably be a little heavy on the pocket but it will not cost as much as investments in stocks and bonds. Moreover, if your business does not earn you anything, you can stop and cut your losses or research and apply some advertising strategies.

Finally, don’t think of this venture as a pioneering enterprise. Internet video streaming for purposes of formal education and instruction has been in use for a number of years now. Even so, most instructional websites that have gardening tutorials, computer troubleshooting tutorials and a whole score of other tutorials do not have video streaming instruction in their web pages. Video streaming as a method for education and instruction is less than 10 years old.

The advantage of using video streaming is that it gives you the ability to convey your instruction without difficulty since people see you doing the action as you speak the words to demonstrate it. It certainly is better than reading or composing a manual. If you go for the write a manual method, you will need a pretty good writer who can translate technical details into more human terms. The writer will also need to be able to aptly describe necessary movements and motions for the student to understand the instruction.

It certainly is better to listen and watch somebody fixing a wall fan while watching him than holding a book in one hand and a screwdriver on the other. If you put yourself in place of the student, you will be able to imagine how easy it will be to learn from watching a person perform a lesson instead of reading about it.

Your Prospect's Particulars: Persuasion Continuums

I heard a joke recently that I thought was pretty funny. 'I have the idea that one person's dream is another person's nightmare. For example, it's my dream to sleep with Cindy Crawford. I'll bet you anything that would be her nightmare.'

We're all different: some of us like to do crossword puzzles, others love math, some of us like to take tests or read maps, others enjoy cleaning. Our differences make us unique and our prospect's differences are what can make persuasion extra powerful.

When we figure out the key to unlocking our prospects particulars, we can decipher their messages and understand how uniquely we're all configured.

Here is a strategy that will make it easier to understand and take advantage and make the most of your prospect or client's particular criteria and values.

A persuasion continuum is an interesting phenomenon. If you were to draw a straight line on a piece of paper and if you were to put one of the directions of the continuum on the right side and the opposite on the left side, then you'll know what I'm talking about when I say 'continuum'. These are patterns that exist in the minds of people and they exist in particular contexts. As the context changes, so too can a continuum. They won't always hold the same across all contexts.

I will explore these types of persuasion continuums more specifically in future articles. A few of them that we'll be working with are 'towards and away', 'sameness and difference', 'internal and external' and 'options and procedures'.

Many of these are intricately intertwined and dependent upon their criteria or your understanding of their criteria. We define criteria as that which points our prospects and clients to what is relevant for them.

You've heard of a 'what's in it for me' mentality? Well, that's the concept of criteria and values at its essence. Is there something here for me? Or is this not for me at all? Everybody has this one big question when they come to talk to you.

Continuums are free of content. This means they don't depend on what you're going to say at all, but depend on the context in which you're talking.

If you are a financial adviser then you talk to people about their finances. That is the context with which contiuums hold. They will remain a constant within that particular context.

What is it that we're doing here? What's the point of a continuum? A continuum increases rapport, persuasion skills and creates incredible changes in your ability to get your message or information about your product or service and how it can benefit this client or prospect.

These continuums which I've mentioned are ones we can spot and find within each and every person. Some are more significant in some people than others. And in some future articles I'll be focusing on these four.

This is some deep, powerful persuasion and if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, it's perfectly natural. Stay tuned for more in depth information.

Your Rockin' Red Hot Online Media Room

Did you know that second only to your blog, the media room should be the most updated page on your website? When was the last time you updated your media room? For most of us, it's probably been a while. We tend to put up media rooms and then forget about them. But more and more, a good, informative media room should be consistently updated.

We've found through research, reading, and our own experiences that often it's not just the media that visits this page, that's why the term "media room" is a bit misleading. It's actually a great place to inform, entertain, and educate your reader on you, your books, your message or product, and the things you've been up to, and often it's the first place a prospective buyer will go to for more information on you and your work.

In order to compete in the digital age, more and more authors are turning to their media rooms to attract readers to their book. Why? Well it's a great one-stop-shop place to get all the latest data on your books, new editions, new products and new speaking events (should you decide to list them).

The old way of doing media rooms was to have a list of your press releases, maybe a link or two to media and that was that. Now media rooms are almost the nerve center of your entire website. Here's a quick rundown of what should (and shouldn't) be in your media room. Keep in mind that components of a media room will vary, depending on your topic, genre and focus, so if you can't include all of these, that's ok. Better to have only those components related to your book/product/topic than ones that don't make any sense at all:

1) Downloadable picture of your book cover or covers, your photo and other related artwork you want to offer.

2) About You: people want to know who you are, so tell them! Make sure your bio is on the media room and ready to download. It's especially helpful if a media person is trying to gather information for an article and wants some background on you.

3) Press releases with live links: a few issues back we wrote that live links in a press release are a great way to get traffic back to your site, but guess what? It works well in reverse, too. News posted to your site gets spidered very quickly, so including links and keywords will greatly enhance the visibility of both the media room and your press release. In fact another quick tip is this: instead of placing ads, issue a press release. No kidding. Press releases are a far better alternative than an ad on the Internet. You'll get spidered, you'll get ranking and best of all, you'll get traffic.

4) New book/product information: this is the perfect place for sharing past, current, and future information on your book. Be boastful! This your chance!

5) Tip sheets: we all know that the media loves tip sheets, but guess what? Your readers/consumers do, too. Fill your press room with any that you've created.

6) Where you've been featured: be very generous with this. Don't assume that if you have only been featured online that you should not list that. List everything! The more you can populate this room with links that make you look like the busy marketing person you are, the more attractive you'll be to your buyer and to the media.

7) Ideas for stories: if a reporter is perusing your site looking for story ideas, why not give it to him? Creating a pop up box that says "Here's how (insert your name) can help you with your story" is a great way to generate ideas for the media and get yourself a mention in an upcoming story or feature.

8) Bragging rights! If you have testimonials or reviews, place them here, too. While it's always good to sprinkle testimonials/reviews throughout your site, this is another great place to list them. Regardless of whether the visitor to your media room is the media or a reader, people like what other people like!

9) No hunting allowed! Don't make people hunt for information. The other day I was on a site looking for book pricing. I had to send an email to get a list of pricing, and why? Because it was confidential? Doubtful. But most people don't think to remove the extra steps. Shorten the staircase. Meaning: remove needless steps to the close. Put pricing, information sheets, whatever you have up on your media room so folks don't have to go on a hunting expedition for it.

10) Events: I took events off of my website a long time ago. Why? Because I do so much pop up stuff that I had a hard time keeping up with it. There's nothing worse than an outdated events page, but if you can keep yours up, great! Keep it current, the activity will look great on your media room.

A few final tips: don't even consider cramming all of this information onto your site if you're not going to deliver this in pop-up form. Check out http://www.amarketingexpert.com/media.html for an example of this. Also, deliver your text content in both PDF format as well as in text format so the search engines can spider it.

Don't limit yourself to the items mentioned above, experiment with other media room ideas that might not be listed here. Book videos, for example, might be another great addition to your media room. The key is, start thinking of your media room as a place to present yourself not just to the media, but to the world! This will change how you view this very important page on your site and help turn a ho-hum page into a rockin' red hot media room!

Your Small Business Home Office: Organizing The Organization

One of the greatest appeals of working at home, for those who are considering leaving their nine-to-five careers to start doing it, is the idea of working from a small business home office. Having a small business home office in which you are the boss, and decide when to check in, in your pajamas if you please, and when to break for lunch--all the way down the hall or stairs to the kitchen--seems almost too wonderful to believe.

But if you do take the plunge, your small business home office will become as familiar to you as back of your hands, of which you will also be seeing plenty while pounding away at your keyboard. And as you become more acquainted with your small business home office, you will begin to notice its shortcomings.

You put a great deal of thought into the layout of your small business home office, but what looks great on paper does not always translate as intended into three dimensions. Two of the obstacles with which you will have to contend as a home business operator are a loss of focus and lack of organization. Staying organized seems to be the real challenge.

A home business will demand that you keep track of countless passwords, documents—both hard copies and computer files--and financial records. Nothing will get away from you faster than paperwork; and if you start falling behind on orders or payments you will be looking at a disaster. While you’re trying to get caught up on one project, another one will be slipping away. For more info see http://www.i-homeofficefurniture.com/Small_Business_Home_Office/ on Small Business Home Office.

Your small business home office should have everything necessary to help you stay current with all your accounts. Prepare your next day’s to-do list right before you close down each evening, and stick it on your monitor screen. Get into the habit of completing one project or filling one order before beginning the next.

If your small business home office needs more space for files, or a bigger computer desk so that you can keep everything you need handy, spring for them. And take advantage of the many amazing free online resources which provide all sorts of home business advice; both the Office Depot and HP Home and Home Office Store offer online workshops about various business topics on a weekly basis.

Your small business home office will be the seat of your empire, so make sure every thing about it is top quality!

Your Website As A Virtual Office

The online business is on an all time high. Millions and millions of people are venturing in online businesses and as expected, they would try to outdo each other. Competition is so stiff that businesses have tried to do all tricks in the book just to be able to stand out from the rest. Massive advertising campaigns were launched with the purpose of luring potential customers. Giving coupons and promotional items are just two of the several tricks employed by business to promote the company. Of course these are effective ways to gain traffic that could be converted into potential customers but an equally important factor vital to the success of any online business is a good website.

A good website serves as the virtual office of an online business and as such should be able to present a good impression to the potential customer. Just like any other office, it should be “uncluttered”, clean and pleasant to the eye. With just a single click, it should be able to provide the visitor or customer with the vital information he or she is seeking for. And this is possible by creating a website free from excessive trimmings, from unnecessary graphics and animations.

Slow loading sites due to heavy graphics are comparable to an unattended store where customers are waiting in line to be served. There’s a great probability that customers would transfer to other stores rather than cool their heels waiting. This would mean losses in terms of sales. Just like an office space, the interiors should be pleasant and cool to the eyes. This could be achieved by using complementary colors and decorations. This is also true in a website; the background should be lighter to give emphasis to the darker text. This way, the site is made more reader friendly. Nothing is more distracting than a website with glaring colors, with jumping animations and with bouncing banners. These are sure customer turn-offs.

Serving as an online store, the website should be able to provide unobstructed view of the merchandise offered. Using the simple Times New Roman and Arial for the text is most advisable as well as using bold letters and underlining words to give emphasis to key points. This would surely draw the attention of readers.

An office or a place of business will reflect the personality of the company-meaning a beautifully kept office with carefully tended grounds would mean that owners are serious with the business and that they are ready to give the optimum service to customers. The same is true with an online business. A website that is visually appealing to the visitors would draw more traffic thus increasing the chances of attracting customers. This would also mean that the webmaster is serious with his business and have taken great pains to ensure that the site have a professional look. Moreover this would mean that the website owner have used programs that made the creation of the website faster and easier. Attracting visitors is easy with professional looking websites and shopping would be a pleasure because of the security it provides to the customers.

Your Website Could Be Making Money With Empowerism

Empowerism is one of the newest buzz words involved with internet marketing and to some it offers another piece of the confusion in working from a home based business in marketing online. There are also companies out there that offer training courses to help you not only understand empowerism, but also how to use it to your advantage in making money with empowerism.

Empowerism is another piece of the multi level marketing puzzle, which helps companies give the members of their downline, the power to control their own business. Referred to as downline members, they are essentially distributors of a product or service working under the direction of the person who recruited them into the multi level marketing position. Many companies have developed self-replicating web sites that, when instructed to do so, will automatically develop a new website for the newest member of a person’s downline.

This then empowers that new distributor, or sales associate, to recruit additional members and build their own downline from which to reap the financial rewards of their sales commissions. By using empowerism the line can continue to be recreated and duplicated to ensure that every offering is exactly the same regardless of whose name is on it, what web site sponsors it or which distributor promotes it.

Seemingly it will take time to fully understand the effects of empowerism, but once to proverbial light bulb comes on, you will then be able to share your knowledge with others, earning a percentage of their educational fee for offering your knowledge. Much the same way you earn their enrollment fee for joining your multi level marketing plan. This typically small fee is to help offset the costs of establishing the web site for the new person and supplying the training they need to become successful.

Time was, when the owner of a business wanted to spend more time spending all the money he was making, he would empower his management staff to make all the critical day-to-day business decisions and with that extra responsibility they were rewarded for their success. They had to operate the business on guidelines developed and mandated by the owner to be successful. Many managers can earn bonuses based on the quarterly or annual profits of the business they are empowered to operate.

Empowerism in a multi level marketing business operates on much the same principal as you are given the power to operate the business model you were handed and taught to operate. Your success and monetary rewards are based on how well you can operate that business under the founded principals of the company giving you the offer. You also have the power to recruit new members into the multi level marketing program, offering the same training and support to help them achieve success.

Your Website Needs Quality Back Links

When it comes to back links to your website there really are just two basic kinds. The first kind is links of quality and the second kind is those that are not. Quality links come from Authority sites that are relevant to your websites content.

As an example: If your website is real estate related, you preferably want links to come from real estate related websites. Links within related content or categories scores higher in relevancy to your sight and are weighted heavier in the search engines. Plus, relevant links from sites of Authority are weighted heavier in the search engines.

Back links to your website are really just like votes in an election. With just one little twist, high quality links count much more than poor quality links. As a reference point, one relevant link from an Authority site could easily be worth thousands of poor quality links.

So what is relevance? Relevance is how closely the content between the two linking websites relates to each other. You can get relevance in a couple different ways. You can go to the webmasters of those sites working in the same niche as you and request links. Just keep in mind that these are probably your online competitors. Another way to get relevant links is by submitting your site to directories.

Directories place links to websites within category structures that are highly relevant to the content of the listed websites. They do this by using keywords, category descriptions and meta tags within each category to match the content in each category.

There are directories that require a fee for reviewing your website prior to listing it and there are free directories. The difference between the two is the difference between quality and quantity. If you decide to go with free directory submissions, be prepared to submit to thousands of free directories before you get the return of one quality Authority directory.

There are some methods to getting back links that you should be careful to avoid. Those are purchasing text links from brokers and reciprocal links. Both of these methods are getting more scrutiny from the search engines and being devalued.

A good link building campaign does take time. Don’t expect to put in a days work and be done. You should expect to allocate time every week to build links to your site for an indefinite time period. At least as long as you own and operate the website.

Your World Can Revolve Around Internet Marketing Home Business

If you are knowledgeable at internet marketing, home business opportunities abound for you and if not, there are at least a dozen experts who can help you out. Of course, their expert advice often contradicts one another, but with most service-related activities, you try them out until you find one that works for you.

In today’s global market, just about everyone has a website and are in need of marketing. A website without a marketing plan is a hobby and few people can make any money and be successful with their hobby. It really involves a simple formula that shows that zero marketing will equal zero customers and everyone knows that zero customers equals going out of business.

Bringing customers to their site is every business’s goal and a well executed internet marketing plan can do just that. You can have a good home business doing internet marketing for many customers and you can start with your own home business. When companies see your advertisements and contact you, they want to know how good you are. The short answer is that they were able to find you through an unsolicited means.

Before you get started you have to understand that old style marketing involved getting your name in front of people who were in need of your services. In this case, it is just about everyone with a website. The old saying of not caring what they say, as long as they get the name right, was focused on the shotgun approach to marketing. Also considered playing the odds. Sending information to everyone you could think of and hoping for return percentage large enough to justify the expense.

This approach rarely works with an internet-based business as surfers have so many companies to choose from that inundating them with information often turns them away. A targeted approach often can get their attention and get you noticed. While some believe that a one percent return on 10,000 ads is good, that is still only 100 expressing an interest and if you close on 10 percent that comes to 10 sales out of 10,000 contacts.

By focusing your effort on only the 1,000 businesses that actually use your service, a one percent return still equals 100 and a 10 percent sales rate still equals 10 sales, but you saved the money for 9,000, which would have otherwise been wasted.

Another form of marketing, guerilla marketing talked about in 1984 in the book Guerilla Marketing reveals how to achieve marketing on a limited budget. This type of marketing is ideal for small businesses and it extols the virtue of customer service and quality. The company uses personal contact and sales the person, not the product, and delivers a product or service on time that performs the function that it was promised to perform. Word of mouth takes over from there.

Youtube: Why It Is So Popular

Each year, it is seems as if something new appears on the internet. The problem is that fads, also known as trends, come and go. Although it is difficult for a particular internet activity to stay popular for a period of time, there is one that seems to be doing well and it doesn’t show any signs of fading. That is the use of online videos, namely YouTube http://www.barss.info

Online video websites are defined as online websites that post videos. Once a video has been loaded onto the website, it can easily be found and viewed by thousands, if not millions, of internet users. In addition to allowing internet users to view online videos, many video websites also give internet users the option to create, upload, and share their own videos.

As previously mentioned, YouTube is one of the most popular online video websites. In fact, it is so popular that when asked about video sites many individuals automatically respond with YouTube. Whether you have used the services offered by YouTube or not, you may be wondering what is so great about the site. What is it that makes millions of interest users view it, some on a daily basis. The answer isn’t as simple as you may think. This is because there are a number of different reasons why YouTube has become so popular.

One of those reasons were mentioned above, online video websites give internet users the ability to make, load, and share their own videos with the rest of the world. This is something that is literally amazing. Millions of individuals have a good idea or thought that they would like to document or share, but many are unable to do so without the assistance of YouTube. After you have created your own video, you can easily have it uploaded, often in as little as a few minutes.

In addition to being able to create your online videos, you can also view those that others have created. What is nice about YouTube is that they accept a wide variety of different videos, all on different topics, issues, and subjects. On YouTube, you can find videos focusing on pets, entertainment, sports, cars, and comedy. One of the few restrictions that YouTube has is that videos must be no longer than ten minutes. This means that you could enjoy a video while taking a short break at home or at work. It is also nice that you are not required to listen to boring advisements, as many other online video websites require you to do.

Perhaps, the greatest reason why YouTube is so popular is because it is free. Yes, free. This means that you can not only watch as many videos as you want, without having to pay a thing, but you can also make and share your own. Although YouTube is free to use, they do request that you register with them. This registration is also free. Despite being optional, the registration will give you access to other YouTube features, including the ability to rate videos that you have recently watched.

In addition to being free, YouTube is also popular because it is easy to use. You do not have to be an experienced internet user to enjoy online entertainment. With easy to use categories and search features, you should be able to find and watch online videos that peak your interest, without having to spending hours or even days familiarizing yourself with the website.

Youtube And Marketing Opportunities For Home Based Internet Businesses

More and more people are turning to online media in order to promote their home-based internet businesses. While blogging and e-zine marketing are effective forms of promotion for your business, another desirable method is to do it by way of the popular website http://www.youtube.com. One of the best things about creating a video clip on Youtube is that it is free and it is very simple to make. If you are industrious enough you can create a variety of video clips surrounding your home-based business and you can choose to release a different version as you see fit.

Youtube is an excellent way to get information out about what your internet business has to offer in terms of products and services as the exposure you receive is tremendous. Visitors to Youtube can easily share the links of video clips with other people which means that not only will the people you contact see your video about your internet business but so will others as well. This form of networking and word of mouth is invaluable to the success of your business. Due to the fact that Youtube hosts your video you do not need to be concerned about any special software or having advanced technical skills.

Youtube offers so much more than video clips to its audience. You can set your video advertisement up however you wish. You can include whatever sort of mood music you feel is suitable as well as creative imagery and taglines. Search for royalty-free photographs and royalty-free music over the internet if you are not in possession of your own as copyright infringement is a serious offence to be found guilty of.

Make sure that your video on Youtube regarding your internet business shows savvy and creativity and do not make it too long, boring or predictable in any way. Make sure you include a tagline that will immediately grab the audience's attention and have them interested in seeing more. It is recommended that your clip be anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes. It is not recommended that your clip exceed two minutes as if you make it too long you are very likely to bore your audience as well as to lose their attention very quickly. Online people like things that are short and get to the point very quickly.

When you create your video clip on Youtube make sure not to use PowerPoint and it is not advisable to set it up as an interview of yourself in regards to your home-based business. That shows no incentive or originality on your part. Think outside the box! Always make sure that the web address for your business is clearly visible in the video clip as well.

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Youtube And Some Marketing Opportunities For Home Based Internet Businesses

More and more people are turning to online media in order to promote their home-based internet businesses. While blogging and e-zine marketing are effective forms of promotion for your business, another desirable method is to do it by way of the popular website http://www.youtube.com. One of the best things about creating a video clip on Youtube is that it is free and it is very simple to make. If you are industrious enough you can create a variety of video clips surrounding your home-based business and you can choose to release a different version as you see fit.

Youtube is an excellent way to get information out about what your internet business has to offer in terms of products and services as the exposure you receive is tremendous. Visitors to Youtube can easily share the links of video clips with other people which means that not only will the people you contact see your video about your internet business but so will others as well. This form of networking and word of mouth is invaluable to the success of your business. Due to the fact that Youtube hosts your video you do not need to be concerned about any special software or having advanced technical skills.

Youtube offers so much more than video clips to its audience. You can set your video advertisement up however you wish. You can include whatever sort of mood music you feel is suitable as well as creative imagery and taglines. Search for royalty-free photographs and royalty-free music over the internet if you are not in possession of your own as copyright infringement is a serious offense to be found guilty of.

Make sure that your video on Youtube regarding your internet business shows savvy and creativity and do not make it too long, boring or predictable in any way. Make sure you include a tagline that will immediately grab the audience's attention and have them interested in seeing more. It is recommended that your clip be anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes. It is not recommended that your clip exceed two minutes as if you make it too long you are very likely to bore your audience as well as to lose their attention very quickly. Online people like things that are short and get to the point very quickly.

When you create your video clip on Youtube make sure not to use PowerPoint and it is not advisable to set it up as an interview of yourself in regards to your home-based business. That shows no incentive or originality on your part. Think outside the box! Always make sure that the web address for your business is clearly visible in the video clip as well.

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Zero Investment Internet Marketing Techniques - The Who Loves Money Buzz Review

Seems like every time you turn around someone is hawking the latest and greatest new internet marketing ebook that is sure to make you rich. If you're an internet marketer chances are really good that you've been burned at least once by an ebook that was all fluff and absolutely useful information. Or worse yet, the author, deliberately or not,leaves out a step that leaves you scratching your head over how to execute what you did learn. It's enough to make you scream if you're really serious about learning how to build an online business.

By now you've heard the Who Loves Money buzz. It's the new ebook from Kyle & Carson, Wealthy Affiliate founders, that are claiming they can teach you how to make money online with zero investment internet marketing techniques. It claims to blow the lid off the current internet marketing theories that have been around for decades. The start up costs are supposed to be minimal and there are some techniques which require no money at all.

Most folks are thinking that it's just another internet marketing ebook. That's a true enough statement. However, the Who Loves Money buzz claims are that it's different in the fact that although the techniques presented are not necessarily brand new, these zero investment internet marketing techniques are said to be explored in depth and then explained in a way that is supposed to be easy to understand as well as easy to apply.

If you're new to internet marketing, then you should know that a number of standard website promotion techniques can get very expensive. If you aren't sure what you're doing, you could end up costing yourself money rather than making any. Here are some examples of what can be considered zero investment marketing techniques.

Niche Hunting - Deciding what topic to base your website on can be difficult. Building a site about a topic you enjoy doesn't necessarily mean that you can make a profit. You must learn how to choose a niche that has good profit potential.

Selection of Niche Keywords - You may have picked out a profitable niche, but if you target the wrong keywords for your webpages, you have just shot yourself in the foot. There is an art to selecting the keywords that will turn visitors into customers.

Affiliate Product Selection - You need to be able to review and select an appropriate product to promote on your site. A great website and a lousy affiliate product equals not many sales or lots of refunds. Refunds equal revoked commissions and that's something you don't want to happen.

Article Marketing - Writing topic based articles, usually 300-700 words, and submitting them to article directories. While this seems very easy, there is most definitely a specific technique to making it effective and productive.

Zero investment internet marketing techniques are not the hot new thing. They've been around for quite a while now, but are currently getting lots of attention. The Who Loves Money buzz is definitely building, but whether or not this ebook lives up to its claims still remains to be seen.

Website Planning

Website planning

In too many cases organizations develop a web site for the wrong reasons:

• Their MD wants one

• A web design firm has offered to give them a special deal

• They don’t want to be ‘left behind’

• They want to provide an electronic version of the organization’s brochure

Really good reasons such as

• Making money via sales and customer development

• Saving money by cost effective distribution of newsletters and other publications, managing collaboration and best practice

• Providing information via searchable databases

• Changing attitudes to your organization

are constantly emerging.

Effective web development requires careful thought and deliberation. The opportunities are so vast that they usually stretch the imagination and require rethinking not only of the initial conception of a web site (almost always the electronic brochure) but in some cases a revisit of the organization’s whole strategic plan as well.

But also consider whether you really need a website at all? Not everybody does. Can you explain clearly and briefly why you need a website, and what it will do for you?

A good web plan will pose challenging questions about an organization, its administrative operations, the way it delivers services to its customers and even how it defines customers.

There is no ‘cookie cutter’ approach to website planning and we can’t begin to touch on all the relevant issues here. However, the following website planning guidelines should help you to create a web site that delivers real value – and a site can be successful and deliver real value only when it has been carefully thought through.

Website planning consists of six main areas:

• Setting the web site’s goals
• Defining the web site’s audience
• Creating the web site’s structure
• Planning the web site’s content
• Generating the web site’s navigation plan
• Developing the web site’s visual design
• Generating the web site’s development plan

Setting the web site’s goals

Ask yourself about what you hope to accomplish with your target audience.

Write down your goals so that you remember them as you go through the process. Make goals both quantitative and qualitative.

You should be able to summarize your project in a single sentence. If you can't do that, then you probably need to spend some time focusing your thoughts.

Defining the web site’s audience

To define your audience think expansively. Who are they?

• Customers or members?
• Potential customers or members?
• Colleagues and staff?
• Competitors?
• Who are you not reaching now?
• Do they have computers?
• Are they online?
• Do they actively use the web?

Design your web site “outside in” and not “inside out” – that is design it from the perspective of your audience(s) and not your organization. It's often helpful to think of your site as being divided into several sub-sites

Your website has to provide information that fulfils the immediate needs of your site visitors. Capturing their eyeballs requires you to understand their point of view.

• What information will they be looking for?
• What resources will attract their eye?
• What will motivate them to click through different sections of your site?

Your goal may be to get visitors to contact you, but the immediate needs of visitors' are probably to answer questions like:

• Can I trust them?
• Are they any good at what they do?
• Will they get the job done?

Before the website begins to sell to its site visitors, it has to answer their questions and put their fears to rest. This is fundamentally important, so one more time:

Creating the web site’s structure

Once you have worked out what your site visitors' immediate needs you need to create path(s) that your site’s visitors will follow. Draw a flow chart to show how you want users to navigate through the content; it should be as simple as possible and focus on the user's experience -- how he or she can navigate through the content.

The flow should address their concerns and needs and gradually take them towards completing your goal.

To create the flow you need to:

• Identify the different groups of people who'll use your website
• Work out what you want each of these groups to achieve on your website
• Identify the information they need
• Work out the ‘best’ flows to help them find and read that information

Planning the web site’s content

Make an outline of all the content that you plan to include – an exhaustive, detailed list of all the media necessary for the project. Make sure you account for factors such as copyright.

Evaluate the administrative implications of each content piece. Whatever you do, don’t wait until your site is launched to start thinking about how you will manage it.

Good websites like beautiful gardens require attention:

• Adding new content
• Updating and revising old content
• Evaluating usage
• Responding to information requests and feedback

Think about the right balance between static information (easier to maintain but doesn’t generate repeat traffic) vs. dynamic information (serves as a "carrot" but can add an administrative burden).

Get a handle on the technology challenges and cost factors. Identify special features such as audio or video streaming, web-based conferencing, electronic slideshows, online searchable databases, Geographic Information Services (GIS) mapping, heavy graphics or animations. Here you will need expert advice on the implications for cost, user capacity to handle advanced applications, loading times, and management requirements. Always plan for future growth, even if you can’t afford advanced features at the outset, they can be phased in over time.

Once you know what your content is think about its organization. Computers are logical beasts. Your website will proceed more smoothly if you have a logical document structure and file hierarchy. Decide where to put items such as images and sound files. For example, it's convenient to place all your images in one location, so that when you want to insert an image into a page, you know where to find it. Any time you have more than one document relating to a particular topic, you should probably consider creating a folder to contain them.

Generating the web site’s navigation plan

Think about the experience you want your visitors to have. Think about how a visitor to your site will be able to move from one area to another. Navigation should be consistent throughout your site. If you place a navigation bar across the top of your home page, try to keep it there for the entire site.

Consider the following points:

• One-click navigation to any page (or section in a very large site)
• Visitors should know where they are in your site
• Search features and indexes make it easier for visitors to find information
• Feedback features provide a way for visitors to contact the Webmaster

Understand the unique way that people navigate the web – remember that people "read" the web in a way that is completely different from the way they read print media. According to Jacob Nielson, a guru of web usability, most people don’t read web pages at all, they scan them. Neilson suggests using highlighted keywords, sub-headings, bulleted lists and one idea per paragraph and simple graphics.

Developing the web site’s visual design

Know what you want before designing the site. Ask around. Look at lots of sites. Bookmark a list of favourites as models. Make a commitment to control the web design process. Don’t delegate decision making to outside consultants.

Draw sketches. It's a good idea to sketch out what you think the layout of your pages should be. Don't worry about being very precise. Just get the general idea down on paper as a reference. In more detail you can create ‘wireframes’ and ‘explosions’. (Non functional, annotated sketches of key elements and screens with detailed insets of particular areas of detail).

Maintaining consistency in your page layout and design helps to ensure a good user experience. The user should be able to click through the pages in your site without getting confused. If all the pages have a different look, or the navigation is in a different place on each page, it might frustrate the user. Make sure your site provides a consistent look for your user.

Understand that design for the web is different from design for print. Visitors have different computer systems, different browser software, and different screen resolutions. If a designer insists on visitors seeing the site exactly as he or she sees it this can create a lot of disadvantages (e.g. slow page loading) and/or a lack of flexibility. The whole principle of the Web is that users can choose how they want a page displayed. If you try to stop them from doing that, you'll be closing the door to a lot of potential visitors.

Once the website design has been created, it's time to test it. This is the most important usability test that needs to be done and the one that will save you the most time and money in the long run. According to IBM, every £1 invested in making your website easy-to-use returns £10 to £1009.

If you don't do any usability testing you may discover that the structure of the website doesn't make sense once the website's up and running. This can and has happened and it leaves you with two choices: redesign the website or make a new website - neither are attractive options.

The most common objections to doing usability testing are:

• It's too expensive!
• It'll take too much time!
• I don't know how to do it!

Wrong, wrong, and wrong! Usability testing, especially at this early stage, is incredibly cheap, quick, informal and easy to do. You just need to show five people the plan/site map of the website and ask them:

• What's the point of this website?
• If you were on this page, where you would click?
• And where after that?
• Is it what you need?

That's it! As long as these five people roughly fit into your user profile everything should be fine. It's been shown that using five people for a usability test will uncover 85% of the usability issues of the website.

Generating the web site’s development plan

Now write down a detailed plan to spell out how the above will be delivered, who does what and when. Include schedule and budget information. There is plenty of project management software to help with this or just write it!

11 Ways To Drive Traffic Away From Your Website

Why Web-Users Are So Impatient

While watching a Toronto Raptor basketball game I saw T.J. Ford, one of the fastest players in the league, rush down the court like a man possessed and proceed to throw the ball behind his back to a trailing Andrea Bargnani. The trouble was the ball sailed over the head of the seven-foot Bargnani into the second row of seats. Ford, himself, ended up with a beer and popcorn facial after landing in the lap of a front row patron. So what does this have to do with website design and marketing you ask? A lot.

As talented as Ford is a basketball player he sometimes plays out-of-control, and his major asset, his speed, becomes a liability. When this happens in a basketball game the answer is to slow the game down and get back in control.

Don' Speed-It-Up; Slow-It-Down

Website visitors are like the speedy T.J. Ford; they are so intent on getting what they want as quickly and efficiently as possible, that they often surf the Internet out-of-control.

How many times have you sat in front of the computer with your hand resting on your mouse searching for some desired product, service, or information, when all of sudden you find what looks like what you want, but before you even have a chance to discover exactly what it is, your hair-trigger finger decides it's time to move-on. It's like your finger has a mind of it's own.

Speed Kills Marketing Efforts

All the talk and discussion about short attention spans caused by people raised on video games and quick-cut-edited music videos is very misleading.

What website visitors won't tolerate are websites that waste their time, and many websites are guilty of exactly that. Contrary to popular belief, the job of a website designer, who understand marketing, is not to speed up website visitors, but to slow them down so they can absorb the marketing message.

If you want your audience to remember you, if you want to make an impression, if you want website visitors to understand why they should give you their business, then you have to slow them down long enough to absorb your message. And that message better be worth their while or they will never come back.

It isn't about how fast a page loads; it's about delivering an appropriate payoff for the wait.

Now I will admit there people who absolutely, positively will not wait more than eight seconds for anything to load. You know who you are. And I say, the hell with them. These are the same people who won't wait their turn in a brick and mortar store either, they demand to be served before everyone else - it's just not possible to satisfy these people, so why design your entire website marketing around them. They are never going to hang around long enough to grasp your message and learn why they should be giving you their business, so forget about them.

The people you should be worrying about are the ones that really want to find out more about what it is you do, and are prepared to invest a little time and effort to give you a chance to explain yourself. These are the important people; this is your real audience, and you disappoint them at your financial peril.

The Reasons Why Web-users Are Impatient

The real reason website users are so damn impatient is not that they have such short attention spans, it's because most websites are designed to meet perceived company objectives, rather than audience needs.

How To Drive Traffic Away From Your Website

Let's take a look at some of the reasons why your website visitors may be leaving your website before they've had a chance to hear what you have to say; or to put it another way, if you want to drive traffic AWAY faster than you attract it, here are some of the things you should do.

1.Give Web-visitors Too Many Options and Choices
Social scientist and Swarthmore College professor, Barry Schwartz, has coined the phrase, "the paradox of choice." His studies have concluded the more choice you give people, the less likely they are to make a decision. Some choice is good, but too much choice creates confusion: it's a case of diminishing marginal utility.

A well designed website explains, directs, guides, and focuses visitor attention on the things that are of real benefit to your visitors and to your company.

Every business provides a variety of products, services, and information to their customers, but these things are not all of equal importance. Your website is a place to focus attention on your core marketing message, not a place to provide a shopping list of everything you are able to do and every product or service you may be able to offer.

2. Give Web-visitors Too Much Information To Process
Architect, author, and information designer, Richard Saul Wurman, in his book, 'Information Anxiety' talks about, "the ever-widening gap between what we understand and what we think we should understand."

Good website design is about more than technology and aesthetics; it's about deciding what information needs to be presented and what information needs to be left out. If you are truly an expert in your field, you should know what information is important to your customers in order for them to make a decision. Too much information is like too much choice, it confuses rather clarifies. Focus on delivering meaningful content or risk having your visitors hit the exit button.

3. Give Web-visitors Too Much Non-relevant Content
The only thing worse than overloading your website with more information than visitors can absorb is confusing them with useless and non-relevant content.

Non-relevant content is content that doesn't advance your major purpose: to deliver your marketing message in an informative, engaging, entertaining, and memorable manner. If it isn't relevant, dump it.

4. Give Web-visitors Too Many Irritating Distractions
Websites should be designed to direct visitors to the information they want and that information should be the content you want to delivery.

You cannot sell someone a product or service they do not want. A real prospect is one that needs the same information you want to provide; the art of sales is directing potential clients to relevant information, and presenting it in a way that visitors see your product or service as fulfilling their needs.

On the surface, third-party advertisements and banners may seem like a good way to make some extra cash from your traffic, but these ads become so distracting, visitors either get feed-up or click on one of the links that takes them away from your site. Whatever few bucks you earn from these ads, you are loosing by chasing real customers away; this of course assumes you are a real business with something legitimate to sell and not a website that's an excuse to deliver advertisements.

Other nonsense like favorite links and silly fluff-content merely distracts visitors from investigating your site to find what they are looking for.

5. Give Web-visitors Too Many Red Flags
Website visitors are constantly looking for red flags that tell them that the site they are visiting should be skipped as soon as possible.

If you want to make sure visitors won't deal with you make sure you don't provide any contact information: no contact names, no phone numbers, and no mailing address is a sure sign that you won't look after any problems that arise from a website transaction.

Your website must be designed to build trust and foster a relationship, not scare people away.

6. Give Web-visitors Too Many Decisions To Make
How many decisions do you demand from your visitors in order for them to do business with you?

Take for example the seemingly simple task of purchasing a new television. Do you purchase the inexpensive but old tube technology, the newer Plasma technology, or the LCD technology? How about all the various features to choose from like picture-in-picture, commercial skip-timers, and on and on? All you really want to do is relax with your spouse and enjoy a good movie - is that on a VSH, DVD, Blu-ray, or HD-DVD?

7. Give Web-visitors Too Many Stumbling Blocks
Do you make people go through the order processing system before they can find out how much something costs, or do you demand potential customers read a ridiculous amount of small print legalese that only a lawyer could understand?

If you want to drive traffic away from your site make sure you build in as many stumbling blocks as possible.


8. Give Web-visitors Too Many Forms TO Fill-in
Do you attract your visitors with special offers or free white papers and then demand that they fill-out complex forms, surveys, and questionnaires before you give them access to what they came for? If you do, you are probably losing a lot of people you attracted, and you are guaranteeing that your next email promotion will end up in the trash.

9. Give Web-visitors Incomprehensible Page Layouts
Good design, proper page layout, consistent navigation, and well organized information architecture that promotes serendipity, helps visitors find what they're looking for and provides a pleasant, efficient and rewarding experience for the website visitor.

Website designs that rely on technology, databases, and search engine optimization rather than focused content, coherent organization, articulate presentation, and a memorable, rewarding experience are designs designed to chase traffic away.

10. Give Web-visitors Too Many Confusing Instructions
One of the most frustrating experiences website visitors encounter is confusing instructions and incoherent explanations of how your product or service works or how to order what you are selling.

11. Give Web-visitors Too Many Reason To Click-out
If you really are determined to fail, make sure you provide website visitors with as many reasons as possible to leave your site: irrelevant links to your favorite sites, links to your suppliers because you're too cheap to put their information on your own site, or any combination of the reasons mentioned above, all contribute to driving traffic away from your site.

Web Site Traffic Promotion.7 Terrific Traffic Ideas That Dont Include Seo Jvs And The Expensive Ppc

Traffic? Have you been banging your head against the wall trying to come up with ways to increase your website traffic without emptying your bank account?. Yes we know that PPC can lose you thousands of dollars, unless you are on of the lucky few who posses the Undercoverprofit membership or google adwords miracle.Plus SEO is very expensive and time consuming unless of course you have search great yet very expensive tools like SEO ELITE.

Then the JV, oh that intimidating process of contacting the gurus to JV with you , then coupled with rejection letters. I guess you have experienced it if you have stayed online for some length of time.
So what do you do when in such a dilemma? Yet you need loads of traffic to make money online?

Remember, we are talking about targeted traffic. Laser targeted, highly motivated customers ready to whip out their wallets and input their credit cards. You are searching for El Dorado. You know it's there. You've read that others have found it. There is a path and it starts here.

Below are five diverse methods that you start to use to drive targeted customers to your site with the knowledge you gain here.

1. Join the world and start a blog! Blogging is the craze of this internet generation. A blog is online diary that can be easily updated. Your readers can even leave comments or answer polls. By just setting one up you create another link into your site. People love blogs and love to read what others have to say. By creating a blog on a subject related to your website you already have targeted visitors who won’t hesitate to click onto your website if they want to learn more information.

Setting one up is extremely easy and most blog websites are free. I recommend trying out Blogger.com as it’s operated by Google. Also, by setting up a blog on Blogger.com you can almost guarantee you’ll be picked up by Google spiders quicker than if you manually submitted your website to them. Although there are great advantages to posting to a Blogger site you always want to have a blog hosted on your own site. Blogger will take down sites and sometimes for no apparent reason. You can lose all your data and traffic in seconds. Apart from blogger, I have personnally used wordpress successfully. The first time I opened up my word press blog, I made two sales that day. And these were highly priced items. The unfortunate thing is that I got this blog deleted or removed by word press for reasons I did not even know.

I cannot access it now. May be it is my computer. it was located at http://www.softerdreams.wordpress.com If it is still there, you can send me an email to tell me.

2- Have you seen the next thing to bloging? I do not know what to call it, but it is called a lense. You simply open up a lense,and post any message relating to your topic or business. Provided you update it every day, people will visit this lense even from places you never expected. At your lens, you only post little information about your product or website and then point the reader to your product webpage. In other words, a lens is just a starting point for surfers, not the finishing point. So your offer is the finishing point.

Lenses rank really highly in google, often #1 for non-competitive search terms, and tags help your lens come up for SPECIFIC search terms.

What you have to keep in mind is your probable visitor's mind before he/she finds your lense. What might a person new to your subject search for? Might they type a QUESTION into google?

For example, someone might type: Vitamin booster? If you had this as a tag on your vitamin booster lens then you would probably come up quite high!

Do you have a lens about camera memory cards? Maybe this would be a good tag: what memory cards work with cameraX. Not everybody is going to search google for that, but those who do will probably find you.

So you have to think foward.Will anyone in your target audience type a QUESTION into google? What might they type? Think of some examples, and add them as tags!

You can start up your own lens at Squidoo in only five minutes and it is free. Plus check out my own make money online lens here (Feel free to contact me when you experience any dificult in setting up your lens

3. Make forums related to your niche, your daily destination. There are people talking about your niche on any number of forums and groups. Join several and provide accurate content rich answers to their questions. Be seen as a helper, someone who is truly interested in the topic and the people. Do not spam. Do not advertise but place your site in your signature line. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the number of good customers you'll receive. If people are motivated enough to join a forum or group to discuss their issue then they most likely are motivated to find good information. The other advantage is that your will also gain a lot of knowledge from the experts in your niche. All the gurus in your niche usually hang out in forums. So if you need to rub shoulders with them, it is good you go there.

*Important though * Remember you also have to give the impression of an expert in your niche when answering questions. So you should not openly ask questions. Be the contributor. But if you need so of your questions answered, what I usually do is identify the epert and PM him /her. That way, your inefficiencies are not known by the public.

3.Bum Market to get targeted traffic. Well,bum marketing is a very wide topic that has recently taken trend. It so wide that I cannot discuss it in this volume. But briefly, bum marketing is article marketing to earn money.What you do is to do research on keywords, I recommend keyword elite. Then you identify the key words with little competition ( not above 15000) but some good searches performed on it in a recent month. Then you go to click bank, choose a product related to that topic, write and article about it. Then in your resource box on the article, you include a link to that product. You then submit your article to three recommended article directories which google loves so much. These article directories are Ezinearticles.com, Goartcles.com and searchwarp.com
With a few weeks, your article will show up on google for a term related to your topic. But you have to make sure that the title of the article contains the keyword or key phrase you are targeting. That is the only SEO you will need with bum marketing.Bum marketing gets traffic to your website simply by riding on the back of the already established higly trafficed sites. Watch out for my next ezine where I will completely disect bum marketing.

4. Viral marketing has a mystique about it. The first site that accidentally took real advantage of this method was Interview With God. The owner of the site published a public domain poem on the net just a couple of months before 9/11. His site was ?discovered' by many people who took solace from the poetry and began sending the site to all of their friends. The rest was history. The essence of viral marketing is sharing information with people you know. There are several avenues open to you and even more if you use your imagination. You can take advantage of social networking sites and social bookmarking sites where you can share your information with all of your new ?friends'. Tell a friend scripts on your site can encourage your current visitors to tell their friends. You'll find that people will tell their friends if your site is funny, touching or if you offer incentive. Another technique is to offer free information through ebooks with links back to your site.

5-Article marketing. This is different from the bum marketing method I have talked about above. With bum marketing, you are basically tarketing low competitive keyword. But here I mean geting traffic for even those highly competitive keywords such as mine which is Make money only and internet marketing. Article marketing has been a topic of conversation for several years now. People seem to attempt this particular avenue and get discouraged easily. Although this type of marketing will economically generate targeted customers it is a time consuming job. The best technique to use is to post at least three to four articles per week to two or three of the top article directories. It's not necessary to post to 300 directories, just the ones with high page ranks like ezinearticles.com. These article postings do three things. You have back links from a site with a high page rank; you have access to publishers and your content will be found on organic searches based on the keywords and phrases you enter when you post to the directory.

6. Do you have expert knowledge on a particular subject that relates to your website and business? You not only can share that knowledge in groups and forums but also by using answer sites through Yahoo Answers or eHow.com. In these arenas people post questions and others post answers. People who read the answers rate them. Your site gets traffic when people perceive that you are giving high quality answers.

MySpace.com Traffic

7. Using MySpace.com to advertise your website has become a new way to increase your traffic. This site is mainly a “people meeting” site but you can list your website and create friendships with thousands of people in a very short time.

You simply need to mention your website URL when you send a message to the community bulletin board. This can create a tremendous flood of traffic to your website as there are over 35,000,000 subscribers to MySpace.com.

You have the knowledge to drive traffic to your site. This may not be the flood of traffic that dreams are made of but they are targeted customers, the most important kind of traffic. As your skill using these techniques improves so will the number of buying customers visiting your site. And isn't that the point? By spending a little time and using some creativity, promoting your website doesn’t have to drain your bank account. Take some time to check out these opportunities and you’ll find yourself with a steady stream of website traffic in no time.

40 Ways To Lead Like The Greats

Solid leadership is a combination of instinct and education. It is born of the inherent versus environment precept. It is never all of one and none of another, but a balance. Great leaders carry a charisma: some of it inborn, some of it through the development of skills that bring with them confidence. That charisma, or as we call it, that “It” encompasses more than sheer charisma. “It” is the magic that causes people to follow when it doesn't make logical sense to do so. “It” enables groups of followers to weather storms, fight uphill battles, stretch their own limits beyond what was once thought possible, and live on long after the leader is gone. (By studying the greatest leaders in history, such as Ganghis Kahn, Atilla the Hun and Winston Churchill, we can get an education in the secrets of “It.”)

Any great leader has an “It” checklist that looks like this:

1. There is a difference between leaders and managers. Managers make sure that things are running smoothly, leaders create change and followings through vision.

2. Leaders create visions in which others can believe. Leaders enable followers to buy in to decisions by giving them clear objectives and expectations and them leaving them to use their talents and strengths to do the work.

3. Leaders understand and honor the words autonomy and empowerment. Leaders know not to do too much, but to supply their people with the resources and guidance they need to follow through on their own. Outstanding leaders lead the charge, riding on their horses with the troops, but they allow each soldier to draw their “bayonettes” as conditions necessitate.

4. Leaders see the totality of their company. Their cross-functional teams know how to work as a whole enterprise. The best of leaders teach their teams how they are interwoven, and how each team carries a vital purpose to the whole, and how they fit into the interwoven mesh of the corporate blanket.

5. Leaders understand the necessity of key subordinate leaders. They know how to hire based on unique valuable talents and remember to let those talents work for the group. They know that it is the weak leader who allows his own fears about loss of control to cloud his memory in regard to why those special talents were brought on board to begin with.

6. Leaders have followers who not only believe in the mission of the organization, but have followers who are accustomed to winning. Winners believe that goals and objectives can actually be captured. Leaders hire people who know how to win and thrive on the energy generated by winning.

7. Leaders are curious. Usually they are curious by nature. They want to know why and how things are done. They ask questions and aren't afraid to probe into unknown areas to find solutions.

8. Leaders are instinctual. They follow their gut. Their curiosity drives them to accumulate the necessary information they need so that when decision time comes, it is the gut that has the final say.

9.Leaders understand the saying that a rolling stone carries no moss. Their organizations are not mossy. They know that the key to success is continual momentum. Momentum breeds momentum. They carry this forward from product development and reward programs that boost morale, to customer satisfaction efforts.

10. Leaders reside in the moment of today and tomorrow simultaneously. They are not short sighted, developing systems and institutionalizing their best strengths in order to succeed today and in the future.

11. Leaders plan. They know that 90% of their time is best spent planning and 10% is spent on administrative work.

12. Leaders form partnerships. They don't pretend to be lone rangers. They know that their success hinges upon their ability to use other people strategically. The partnerships of successful leaders are win-win partnerships. They ally themselves with anyone from customers, competitors, vendors and whatever sources bring the results their organizations need.

13. Leaders are not incremental. They transform. They welcome change and use change to keep on top of their industries.

14. Leaders admit their mistakes. They know how blame casts a fatal blow to morale and trust. They do not, however, gravel and seek pity. They acknowledge, learn, and move on.

15. Leaders are masters of observation. They listen, watch, and detect what others overlook. They use the subtle cues or observations to give them the upper hand when needed.

16. Leaders institutionalize their values, visions, accomplishments and strengths. They know how, through procedures and systems, to filter their strengths through the organization.

17. Leaders may leave physically, but not spiritually. Their legacies live on long after they have exited their employment.

18. Leaders don't hold hands, they shape their organizations through shaping minds. They provide direction and guide. They do not believe in making decisions for their key subordinate right hands.

19. Leaders give credit where credit is due. They acknowledge and reward achievement and use the momentum from the accomplishments to fuel further success in their followers.

20. Leaders don't provide positions out of the goodness of their hearts. They create positions and fill them based on the objectives and the vision of the company.

21. Leaders remain focused on the company missions and lead their followers to do the same.

22. Leaders are global thinkers. They don't underestimate the power of the global economy. They constantly search for ways in which they can expand or benefit upon the global and they are keenly aware of the pitfalls of turning a blind eye to the global business markets.

23. Leaders know communication. They're savvy interpersonal and technological communicators. They know the ins and outs of dealing with various personalities as well as they know how e-mail connects them to their front line staff.

24. Leaders think outside the box, inside the box and all around the box.

25. Leaders are not afraid to take an unorthodox approach. You'll never hear one say, “We don't/can't do it that way.” They go beyond the “That's the way we always do it” mentality to the “That's the best way to do it.”

26. Leaders learn from leaders. They look to history, competitors and mentors. They are not too proud to always learn from those they admire.

27. Leaders know that there is always something more to learn. They are constantly feeding their minds. They know that the key to progressive transformation is found in ideas. They realize that success isn't going to happen. They have to seek new ways in which to make it happen.

28. Leaders give ownership when it is strategically advantageous to do so. They give rewards and incentives, such as stock options, in order to keep key employees. They understand that rewards give birth to new successes.

29. Leaders create teams to achieve goals. They know that the meeting of two minds can develop opportunities that only one mind may miss. They successfully manage the interactions of their teams in order to meet desired ends.

30. Leaders develop creative ways to cut through unnecessary bureaucracy or eliminate hindering bureaucratic practices in order to expedite vital activities.

31. Leaders know that in order to keep pace and be innovative, they need to educate and empower their staffs. They provide training, education, and workshops to keep the minds they lead in top, competitive shape.

32. Leaders focus their people's efforts on the customer.

33. Leaders understand that key employees are assets. They are careful about who is hired and appointed, understanding the ripple effects of putting the wrong people in the wrong places. Gary DiCamillo, Polaroid's Chief Executive since 1995, has suffered the woes of poor employee retention, losing key people in sales and product development. It's reported that most of these human resource assets were lost when DiCamillo filled his executive vice-president position with Judith Boynton, previous controller for Amoco. Key employees were baffled by the appointment and lost faith in DiCamillo for putting, what they thought, was an unqualified sub-leader in such a high-ranking position. Polaroid steadily lost $166 million since DiCamillo's reign, from 1995 through 2000. [Source: Forbes 1-22-01 p. 69.]

34. Leaders know how to eliminate the wrong people.

35. Leaders are decisive.

36. Leaders have the courage to live with their decisions. *

37. Leaders work it out when things go wrong. They face problems head on and deal with the issues at hand quickly and effectively.

38. Leaders charge forward with urgency.

39. Leaders guard all assets that give them an edge. They are careful to set in place confidentiality systems and to properly license and trademark intellectual property, inventions and groundbreaking concepts.

40. Leaders know that even the greatest product is not enough. Often criticized for not acting quickly enough to develop spin-off products from its PT Cruiser, DaimlerChrysler recently revealed concept cars based on the blockbuster success of the PT Cruiser. Why? The market will always demand something new, better, more versatile, etc. The GT Cruiser Concept has a larger engine, the PT Cruiser Convertible Concept offers a sporty, fun twist, and the Panel Cruiser Concept is offered as a light cargo vehicle with its 119.8 cubic feet and wood base floor. The original PT Cruiser is one of the most sought out vehicles by buyers today; it's sold at full list price and backordered for months at a time. DaimlerChrysler's possibilities are endless. What are they doing with the product to renew it, to increase demand, and to prepare to fill that demand?

Look at the list again. How can you better motivate your staff to perform at higher levels? Do you see what might be slowing down progress? What might you need to improve upon in your quest to run uphill and seize the flags of victory? Chances are you're doing a good job already. The question becomes, what can you do to convert from good to great? Prosper and enjoy!

© David and Lorrie Goldsmith

What Is Dropshipping? Everything You Wanted To Know About Drop Shipping.

Chances are, if you have an online business, you have heard the term - drop shipping or dropshipping. So what is drop shipping and what can it do for you. Drop Shipping is a quite simple process of selling products without the hassle of carrying inventory or shipping the items yourself. It can be mistaken for an affiliate program, but is quite different. This article will tell you all about Drop Shipping.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is a referral service in which you use specialized made banners, buttons and website links to attract customers to a specific site. Affiliate programs will then pay you commission for either someone clicking on your specialized link or by a customer making a purchase. You are simple a referral service.

Dropshipping is very different. Dropshipping is for those with their own website and are looking for products to sell on their site. Drop ship programs allow you to sell as little or as many products as you would like without the worry of carrying inventory, hiring help, physically shipping out products or warehouse storage.

Here is a basic guide to starting your own business using drop ship programs.

Starting with your own website, you should begin be deciding what and how much you want to sell. After you have those details worked out, you should begin to search for drop ship partners that carry the inventory you would like to sell. This can be a little hard, but well worth it.

Drop ship programs may charge a monthly or yearly free and some offer their services for free. Free does not always mean better. Weigh the cons and pros before completely dismissing them. Do your homework whether it is a free service or not. Read the contract agreement BEFORE you sign up with a program. All drop ship programs are different and you don't want to get involved in something that does not suit your needs.

There are certain things you should look for when choosing drop ship programs.

• How long the drop ship program has been around? - be sure they are a reputable company and they are experienced in drop shipping.

• Fees - Make sure to you know exactly what the fees are if any. - You don't want to get hit with hidden fees later.

• Do they allow you to set your own prices? - This definitely helps, especially when it comes to shipping rates. (We will talk more about shipping later on)

• Do they give you professional product pictures and descriptions to use on your own site? This is extremely important to your business. If you can not supply great pictures for customers to see, they will not want to buy from you. Professionalism is key.

• Do they add your company name when shipping out to customers? This is key in getting return business and more reputable. If they item is being to a person other than the person who bought the item, than seeing YOUR company name is a great way to get a new customer.

• Do they display inventory so that you know what is available for your customers? Nothing will upset a customer more than picking the perfect item to then find out, it is out stock after they have paid for it.

• Provide tracking information to pass along to your customers
Other great benefits that a dropship company may offer, but not mandatory are:
• Allow you to start an affiliate program with their products

• Will add your business cards or other goodies into your shipped packages

• Have special sales for its drop shippers

• They provide thumbnails AND large pictures
Now that you know what drop shipping is, its time to move on to getting it working for you.
You have now established a product line, drop ship partnerships and a website. Let’s put it all together.

You should already have a website built; now let’s add your products. As we established earlier, a good DS company should provide you with professional pictures and descriptions. If you would like to use your own, be sure that grammar, punctuation and spelling is correct. But most importantly be descriptive AND informative. Also be sure that the DS company allows you to write your own description.

Navigating your site should be easy, so group similar products together. Try not to add too many items with large pictures on one page. It can make the page load slowly.

If you were lucky enough to find a program that gives you both thumbnail and large pictures, it’s an advantage. That makes your product pages easier to build and looks more professional. If they do not offer thumbnails AND large pictures, don't worry. There are plenty of services that can create thumbnails for you. Look into photo gallery software.

Now let’s set the price. If strict pricing doesn't allow you to set your own pricing, then go ahead and use the prices DS program has already established. If they do allow price changes, this can be beneficial, especially when it comes to shipping.

Cynthia Recommends - I recommend using either one program that already has established pricing OR using ones that allow you to set your own prices, NOT BOTH. It can get very confusing for you.

If the DS program doesn't allow you to change prices, than chances are they do not allow you to change shipping rates either. As I said before, that is completely OK. However, this is best for those who wish to use this one and only particular DS program. If you choose to use several programs, shipping rates can differ and can become an issue. It’s best to use programs that allow you to set your own prices for this very reason.

Cynthia Recommends - I recommend setting flat shipping rates and adjusting your retail cost based on the shipping rates.

Adjusting pricing is a great way to set flat rates for shipping instead of having a different shipping price for item. If you site allows you to set a different shipping price for every item with minimal effort than go for it. For those who do not have that luxury, here is your solution.

Set flat rates and adjust your retail cost based on shipping fee. For example, you have a bicycle you want sell. Here is how it would break down:

Drop ship/Wholesale Cost - $35.00 (That is the price you would pay for the bike)

Drop Ship Shipping Price is $20.00 (What the drop ship companies charges you to ship the bike to your customer)

MSRP - $50.00 (Manufactured Suggested Retail Price - how much they think YOU should sell the bike for)

If you have a flat fee of $10 shipping for every item shipped through ground shipping, you would then adjust the retail price to $60 (instead of the MSRP of $50) and the shipping can remain at $10. You are still making the same amount of profit with the shipping price at a flat rate.

Why is this beneficial? Customers like when shipping costs are lower.

AND

You do not have to have a different shipping price for EVERY item. Every item that you ship out ground shipping can cost $10, no matter what the drop ship company charges.

Of course you can make the flat shipping rates whatever you choose. You can make it free and add the shipping charge to the retail price. So in the bike example, the bike would cost $70 and free shipping.

Customer Service is another big difference between affiliate programs and using dropshipping services. With affiliate programs, once the customer clicks on your specialized link as is taken to the designated website, your job is done. You do not need to do anything else. Drop shipping requires that you handle your own customer service and payments.

Once a customer orders and makes a payment on your site, it is your responbility to then visit the site of your drop ship supplier to purchase and have the item shipped to the CORRECT address. Here is a diagram explaining the process.

What you offer is what brings them in. Your customer service is what keeps them coming back. So you will be responsible for whatever happens, whether it is your fault or not. That can be the downside to the drop ship business. If they drop the ball, you still need to clean up the mess. That is why it is super important to know who you are dealing with and they are experienced with dropshipping.

So you have the site, the products, the price and the shipping! You are all ready to start making a profit. Here are few extra tips to being the best drop shipper you can be.

Drop ship supply companies are behind the scenes and should not have direct contact with your customer.
There are several reasons for this:

• Your customer may begin to deal directly with the drop shipper (if they retail as well) as opposed to you. This results in lost sales

• Drop ship companies should not represent your company. You should be responsible for your company's reputation and customer service. A customer will not become a repeat customer if they do not receive proper customer service. Drop ship can assure the customer service you can.

• Customers may feel cheated if they deal with someone other than your company's employees. Most consumers do not understand online business or drop shipping. DO NOT make the mistake of assuming that customers know the behind the scenes of online businesses. ESPECIALLY drop ship programs.

Offer a variety of products at various price points. This can come from using multiple drop ship programs.

Keep track of which items come from which drop ship company by using their sku codes or items #s. Make a spreadsheet that tells you what item #s and sku numbers belong to each drop ship company.

Keep invoices from your customers and invoices paid to your suppliers. This helps with taxes.

Read up on tax laws. Laws vary upon the state you live in.
99% of legitimate drop shippers require that you have a resale license and will require one in order to sign up. They are required to gather this information, because they are LEGAL drop shippers.

If you would like to see what you are selling, order an item for yourself to see the quality of the product you are putting your name on.

Keep track of the DS inventory to be sure you are not selling what is not available.

How To Select A Reliable Web Hosting Company

To conduct a successful marketing campaign on the Internet, your website must be hosted by a reliable web hosting company. Selecting the 'wrong' provider can prove very costly along the line.

Below I detail a few important aspects of the selection process based purely on my own experiences over the last six years.

Since there are thousands of hosting companies in the web hosting market, naturally during your research you will encounter hundreds of web hosting resource sites loaded with numerous and sometimes bogus reviews and recommendations, consequently your research process must be very thorough.

First and foremost do searches in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Simply enter terms like "Complaints about 'Your Potential Host's Name'" 'Hosting Reviews', etc.....You will find a lot of stuff regarding your potential host. Search for 'web hosting forums'; there are numerous such forums on the web that contain all kinds of information.

If you consistently find too many complaints about your potential web hosting company.... beware!

A company that offers too many features for too little is also suspect. If they are offering huge amounts of bandwidth and disk space for a very low price, be careful. Here is why: The company will most likely be forced to host numerous websites per server, resulting in congestion and server overload. The result: Your site may be too slow and may experience lots of downtime.

Where is your web host's datacenter located?

A datacenter located in a natural disaster prone and/or a politically unstable region is undesirable. I wouldn't host my website in a Kabul, Afghanistan or Kinsasha, Congo based datacenter - these two and many others around the world are politically unstable regions. On the other hand a datacenter based in the state of California, a major earthquake zone may be undesirable, but the fact that California is more than well equipped to handle such disasters and is the world's nerve center for all that is computer, far outweighs any existing dis-advantages.

A foreign based hosting company may be too far away from your customers. It won't serve you well if your host is based in Australia and your targeted customers are based in The United States. On the contrary, if your are marketing to customers exclusively in Australia from The United States, a web hosting company in Australia would be OK. If you are marketing worldwide, your choice becomes a little bit more complicated....unless of course you are Google, Yahoo or MSN, big companies who host their websites almost everywhere worldwide. Generally, I prefer web hosting companies located in The United States.

How is your web host connected to the internet?

Your potential host's data infrastructure - regional and local is of utmost importance.

- How is your potential host connected to the Internet...Do they have multiple connections to the internet backbone, and enough bandwidth to accommodate surges in web traffic?
- What kind of computer equipment is deployed within the datacenter?
- Is the latest network security technologies incorporated?
- Are the hosting servers protected behind firewalls and intrusion monitoring software
- Is the datacenter monitored via CCTV and supervised 24/7

How fast is your web host?

Find a couple of sites that are hosted by your potential web hosting company and test how fast their pages load on your computer. You also may execute the PING and TRACEROUTE commands on these websites to determine their suitability. Executing the ping command is called pinging a website and it determines how quickly a server can receive and send back a piece of data through your connection. When you run ping it sends a small packet of data and calculates the time it takes to get a response from the server. It is executed four times by default and a small report of average, minimum, and maximum response times will be displayed. A ping output typically consists of the packet size used, the host queried, the ICMP sequence number, the time to live, and the latency. All times are given in milliseconds. A ping output indicating large values and/or lost packets consistently over a period of time ....is a red flag! Please note that if you have a bad or restrictive connection (Your ISP), the results may be skewed. Firewalls and proxy servers installed in your system or network can sometimes interfere with the ping operation. Also, some web hosting companies do not allow pinging of their servers, in which case you will get a 'Request Timed Out message'.

The Traceroute utility displays the connection [path] through the Internet between your computer and the potential web hosting company's server(s). The path between these two locations has many routers, computers and other devices along it which help move Internet information. Each movement from one device to the other is called a hop. Too many hops is cause for concern ....do several Traceroutes for comparison!

Based on my experiences with different hosting companies over the years, I regard the following Web Hosting companies as the most reliable. I am sure there are many other good hosting companies out there, but it would be unfair to comment about a company that I have never dealt with.

One my websites, TheCertificationHub.com has been hosted by Ipowerweb since 2000. There were problems at first, typical when a web hosting company is experiencing a spurt in growth. In the year 2000, they had a customer base of 15,000. Six years later this number has grown to almost 300,000 and their service level has improved tremendously over these six years. Ipowerweb is one of the best web hosting companies on the Internet. A first class hosting company which I highly recommend.

I moved my other website, ClubAfrika.com from Globat to iPowerWeb beginning April 25, 2005. With Ipowerweb I have experienced much less frequent downtimes, few email delays and failures. The customer service is superb and well coordinated as expected. The only problem we had at the beginning was their inability to transfer our database from Globat. Club Afrika is targeted at users in Africa, most of who are still on dial-up. It therefore makes no sense that these users have to wait for 5+ minutes for pages to load up. In this respect Ipowerweb has delivered. My site is no longer 'snail slow' and in spite of a few incompetent TIER 1 Techs here and there, overally I am satisfied with their service. Globat may improve in future....I suspect that they are having 'growth problems' just like Ipowerweb had when I first started hosting with them. If they do, then they might be worth considering for they offer the most 'humongous' features in the web-hosting business. But be cautious, 'Greed' almost always translates into poor website performance....some of their offerings are just too good to be true, for lack of appropriate words.

I have been hosting another website, ApondoSystems.com on Lunar Pages servers since 2000. Lunar Pages web hosting plans start at 5000MB of storage and 400GB of transfer for only $7.95. It is my opinion that Lunar Pages is a great web hosting company. Great website uptime and customer service! Very few websites require more than 1000MB of disk space (Apondo Systems has over 300 pages and I haven't even used one half of the allocated space), so if what you are looking for is quality first, Lunar pages is a good bet. If you are looking for extra databases, humongous disk space and bandwidth, then take a look at iPowerWeb which is a topnotch company too, or even Globat.

StartLogic is a relatively new web hosting company, a reseller of IPowerweb Web Hosting Services. Naturally, you will expect them to follow in the great footsteps of Ipowerweb. Being the #1 reseller of Ipowerweb, StartLogic's hosting infrastructure is most probably maintained by Ipowerweb, a large and reputable web hosting company. They offer both Windows and Unix Hosting. Due to the 'newness' of the company and the fact that I have not used their services, I cannot judge them authoritatively, but based on the comments I have seen so far, all over the Internet and by virtue of their relationship with Ipowerweb, I think this is a good low cost web hosting company.

GoDaddy currently offers one of the cheapest prices for Domain Names and Hosting Services. The pricing on packages is very competitive. With Godaddy website templates you can get a nice-looking Web site with ample storage. Reports indicate that their performance is above average. One thing you may not like is that they do not have an 800 number for Technical Support. They prefer local numbers. I think their pricing especially for Domain Names is very reasonable and is worth giving a shot. Also, if you are looking for just a handful of features, Godaddy offers very flexible packages....they even allow you to pay for your hosting services on a monthly basis! The control panel is kind of 'tight', scripting Gurus may not like some of the restrictions but I think Godaddy hosting is worth a try. We hosted AfroArticles.com briefly at GoDaddy but quickly moved it to Hostgator for one and only one reason: Godaddy does not support CRON JOBS, a server feature vital to AfroArticles.com.

Our website, AfroArticles.com is hosted at Hostgator. We were initially attracted by two things: Unlimited Databases and the option of paying monthly and not the usual year long contract. This means that if we are to disapprove of their services during our self imposed trial period, we will be able to opt out with ease. Well, we haven't because we love the friendly and professional customer service support offered by hostgator and our website has been running exceptionally well. We have yet to experience any unscheduled downtimes. If you are looking to re-sell hosting, then consider Hostgator. Although the pricing is slightly above the average in comparison to other top hosting companies, we feel that the reliability of their services, the bandwidth, storage, unlimited databases and numerous other features included with their packages are well worth it. Hostgator is a topnotch hosting company, at the same level as iPowerweb and Lunar Pages.