Monday, October 31, 2011

10 Killer Ways To Multiply Your Sales

1. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. You could follow-up with a "thank you" email and include an advertisement for other products you sell. You could follow-up every few months.

2. You could upsell to your customers. When they're at your order page, tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original order.

3. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to your web site, they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price. This will turn one sale into three sales.

4. When you sell a product, give your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions selling your product. This will multiply the sale you just made.

5. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your products. You could include an ad on or with the product for other products you sell. You could make sales for the reproduction rights and sales on the back end product.

6. You could cross promote your product with other businesses' products in a package deal. You can include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and have other businesses selling for you.

7. When you ship out or deliver your product, include a coupon for other related products you sell in the package. This will attract them to buy more products from you.

8. Send your customers a catalog of add-on products for the original product they purchased. This could be upgrades, special services, attachments, etc. If they enjoy your product they will buy the extra add-ons.

9. Sell gift certificates for your products. You'll make sales from the purchase of the gift certificate, when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site.

10. Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball caps, t-shirts etc. This will allow other people to see your ad and order.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

SEO - Is A High Page Ranking Overrated?

A discussion of page ranking, it’s relationship to search engine optimization practices and whether or not it is overrated when it comes to making sales with a website.

One of the raging debates about search engine optimization in general is about whether or not you need a high page ranking or not. People will spend thousands just to get a high page ranking on Google, but in the end – does a high page ranking actually translate into high sales? Many expert SEO gurus say no because sometimes all it brings you grief in the form of lots of emails to answer and window shoppers and no sales! The bottom line is that the only kind of page ranking that matters is the one that brings you buying customers.

So how can you end up in the above described situation in the first place? Usually this happens when you end up subscribing to a link farming service or when you have manually indexed to too many low quality sites.

The only thing that truly matters is that when people type in certain keywords into a search engine box that they can find your information quickly and efficiently and that they find what you offer before they find what your competitor has to offer. This means making sure that you have quality keywords that are not stale tagged to your site and used in the copy of it text. It also means not settling for linking to just anybody who comes along no matter how complimentary your two sites might seem.

Yet another way to make it easy for people typing into search engine boxes to find you is to get your html correct. If you are using HTML make sure it is all correct as the spiders may simply avoid reading HTML that reads like gobbledly gook. Using a CSS style sheet to write your site and sticking to its guidelines is one way to accomplish this. Yet another way is to hire an SEO expert or an HTML expert to clean up your HTML language for you.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Presentation Strategies That Sell Your Prospect Now

The heart of the sales call is the presentation. Your future customer has a number of questions which must be answered during your presentation:

Why? “Why should I listen to this salesperson? What can he show me that will benefit myself and my company?” Give the prospect a quick glimpse of the end results. For instance, you might mention at the beginning of the presentation that your program will eliminate his constant involvement in administering his present system.

What is it? “Exactly what are your products and services?” To answer this question you must demonstrate your products, show how your different systems work, and emphasize quality characteristics. Vividly establish the balance sheet for your future customer. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the current system and make a comparison to what you have to offer.

Who says so? “The prospect must know who will back up or validate your claims and promises. Stress your reputation. Present the fact that your company has been in business for x number of years, that you have been innovators in your field, or that you have just started a new division that has been very successful within the last few years.

Who did it? “Who has successfully used your products and services and has had satisfactory results?” Most people do not want to be pioneers. Testimonial letters and an invitation for your prospect to call existing customers at the time of the sales call will have a dramatic impact.

What do I get? This is where you add it all up. Summarize the benefits that your program or product has for the customer and ask for his commitment.

Power Strategies:
Keep the Presentation Simple
Know your Product and Competition Cold
Sell Smart by Being a Know it All
Direct your Presentation to the Prospect’s Need
Do not Make a Presentation if Unnecessary

Next Article: 7 More Guidelines for Effective Presentations

Friday, October 28, 2011

Internet Advertising And Carpet Cleaning

If you run a carpet cleaning business you know that it can be tough to get customers. It does not matter how good of a carpet cleaner you are if you can not get customers. Thousands of good carpet cleaners are no longer in business because they could not do just that. If you would like to attract new customers, read this article and learn a little about internet advertising and what it can do for you.

Internet advertising is the future. No longer do customers look to the phone book for carpet cleaners. This is good and bad. The good thing is that you no longer have to rely on expensive yellow page advertisements. Many cleaners today do not even have a yellow page ad. You must however learn to advertise on the internet. This is the bad because it can be hard to do. It definitely is an acquired skill. Most of the internet business is going to go to the company who can achieve the highest rankings. This is not as easy as it sounds and it can take years to learn how to do it. To begin you need to first make a carpet cleaning website. This is the easiest part. The easiest way to do it is to purchase a template which you can then customize with your companies details. The next step is to learn how to optimize the website. Do your research here as there is plenty of information on the internet. The most important thing to remember is to be patient. It can take years to achieve top rankings on all of the search engines. Once you do however you will have found one of the cheapest method of getting quality carpet cleaning customers. Depending on your market, you can get anywhere from five to twenty calls a week from your website on average.

As you can see, there is a lot to know to successfully market your business on the internet. Just remember to be patient and the results will come. Will it be the only advertising method you need? Probably not but it can be a major part of your advertising plan.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

How To Make Easy Money On The Internet With Blogs

You spend hours every day with your blog. It's become a labor of love. Would it be nice to find a way to make easy money on the internet with your blog?

There are ways to make easy money on the internet with blogs. Make easy money on the internet tip #1: Host ads. The easiest method and is probably seen on most blogs is to host ads, such as with Google Adsense. When you let Google put their ads on your site and get paid when people click on the ads. These get mixed reviews. Some say they make a lot this way, but many people do not report much income. Since they are free to ad to your site, it does not hurt to try.

Make easy money on the internet tip #2: Affiliate programs. Affiliate programs work on blogs as well as they work on websites. Affiliate with companies that sell products related to your site. When people click on the link in your blog and purchase a product, you profit. This is another way of making money online with blogs that doesn't cost you anything. If you are passionate about a product and write about it, this can work well.

Make easy money on the internet tip #3: Write articles. If you have a website, blog about some aspect of it and provide a link. Your blog can effectively sell the product, and all the customer has to do is click to your site and order it.

Make easy money on the internet tip #4: Leverage on the Search Engines. You will never make money with your blog unless people can find it. Search engines seem to prefer blogs because they tend to be content rich. It helps to stick to one topic. If your blog serves a niche market, it will have less competition.

In conclusion, it is possible to make easy money on the internet with blogs. Consider your blog as another avenue for making money online with little or no cost. Write about what you love, market your blog, and you could be on your way to creating successful at home businesses

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Save Up To 96% On Your Merchant Account Fees When You Process Debit Cards With A Pin Pad!

Did you know that just by connecting a pin pad to the back of your credit card terminal you will pay only $.65 for a $1,000.00 sale? If you had run this card with out a pin pad at 1.69% + $.25 (A typical credit card and debit card procesing rate.) you would have paid $17.15! $.65 is the standard fee that a merchant is charged when their client enters their pin number on a pin pad to complete a sale.

Why are debit cards so much less expensive? A debit card is directly linked to the client's checking account, which guarantees that the funds are available for withdrawal, therefore reducing the risk of taking a bad card. In addition, only the original card holder will know the PIN for the card therefore reducing the risk of fraud. Also, transactions cannot "downgrade." With debit cards, you will always pay the same flat fee as long as the customer enters their PIN. You will not have to worry about paying mid or non qualified rates for cards did not qualify.

Merchants will also save the time of having to hand the client a pen for a signature. Clients appreciate the speed of online debit transactions and feel more comfortable making smaller purchases when they can be in and out of a store quickly.

Because of the nature of the card, your customers will only use their debit card if they know the funds are available and will almost never have their transactions declined. This saves them from potential embarrassment, and makes your sales process faster and friendlier.

In order to keep transactions secure all pin pads are specially encrypted by the processor that is runnign the transactions. You need to make sure that the pin pad you are using is not only the right type to use with your credit card terminal, but is also encrypted properly!

So make sure to take advantage of this opportunity to lower your debit card processing costs!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Identifying Trends In The Stock Market

1. Prediction of the future

Real Pyschics would, without a doubt, help people investing in stocks. Much of investorsâ and brokersâ time is spent trying to predict what the market will do in the next few days to months. However, the process is not all speculative guessing. If one pays close attention, the market will actually indicate which way it is going. Knowing about predicting the market can greatly benefit anyone.

2. Direction of market

You can see how a stock might do by studying the market. Looking at the overall direction of the market will tell you about future trends. Most, if not all, stocks move with the market. If the stock market is experience a period of growth (a bull market) most stocks will steadily grow. If the stock market is in a decline (a bear market) most stocks will slowly lose value. There may be one day bumps here and there but the general trend will follow the flow of the market at large. To determine the direction of the market only two pieces of information are needed; price and volume. Price refers to the trend of prices of stocks. Volume refers to the amount of stocks being traded. When these two figures are put together it reveals whether there are more sellers in the market or there are more buyers.

3. Setting prices

To determine price, investors and brokers use the big three indicators: the Dow Jones Index, the S & P 500 and the NASDAQ. These indicators help investors and brokers determine whether the market is going to continue in the current trend or reverse course.

4. Discovering volume

The daily sales volume of the markets are frequently used to set understand volume. The daily sales volume is easily obtained from several websites online. If the market has experienced a high-volume day and prices are up (on the three indexes) then the market is up. Huge investors will frequently buy and boost markets under certain conditions.

Monday, October 24, 2011

It Can Be Easy To Develop Your Own Website

Creating a website is not so much a feat, if we compare it to the education of other technical skills.

Most people tend to give up and pack their bags as soon as they hear the word “programming” and “technical”.

They think it`s too much of a hassle to actually learn a whole computer “language”. HTML, the most basic computer language in building websites, is actually pretty simple to understand, as long as we have the interest in learning new things.


What is HTML?

HTML is the acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language.

For learning purposes, just think of it as a language that the computer understands. For example, as humans, we were taught different languages; i.e. HTML as a language, is mostly and specifically used to create a website.

The web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, will then decipher and interpret the code or rather, language(HTML), and display it in a way we can understand it, just like in a basic webpage.


Coding.

Coding the HTML language might be a bit tough for some people, so we can actually purchase programmes, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, or even Microsoft Frontpage. These programmes are solely created to help individuals in designing professional webpages/websites.

Furthermore, one could also gain access to online web-builders, website builders that are inbuilt and can be directly controlled from the net. There are many different and specific builders online.

Books and magazines contain guides that can help in offering tutorials and ways to put up our own websites. Even online tutorials are credible, as in the modern world, information technology is the best and most cost efficient way in retaining knowledge, especially in this particular field.

So, you could start and build one right away. If you enjoy coding, it might even become a favourable past-time.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Seo - Services Tactics That Get You Blacklisted

Should you hire the services of a professional SEO company? Before you do this there are a few things you should know as often the SEO companies that promise results are also the ones that are practicing tactics that are either borderline illegal or even actually illegal. This is particularly true of SEO firms that advertise themselves as being aggressive or guerrilla about their search engine optimization tactics. Some of these tactics are so unfair that some search engines have actual gone so far as to post warning and articles about using these unethical methods to promote your site. Google in particular is very concerned about unfair or overly aggressive viral marketing practices and how you could be utilizing these in your web site without even knowing it because an SEO firm deployed the method for you.

Typically a good SEO company will provide the client with the typical search engine optimization services. These include writing keyword-enhanced text, changing the architecture of the site and the finding of relevant directories that the site can be submitted to. However unethical companies use SEO strategies that can swiftly and permanently get you blacklisted by the entire major search engines. These include such techniques as cloaking, creating doorway pages and keyword stuffing. If you are not that thrilled about possibly paying a lot of money to an SEO service only to be eventually blacklisted by a search engine then make sure that you quiz your SEO services provider about exactly what kind of techniques will be used to search engine optimize your web site. If they are evasive or give you an answer you can’t understand then avoid them. To be safe, make sure that before you sign on the dotted line or click yes to those terms of agreement you need to find out exactly what the search engine optimization company can do for you.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Further Hit With Web Design

In Web Design Delhi these are a few things if we follow us can make a website which appear very fine and bring transfer too since nobody build a website to use it on their local pc? Web Design Delhi optimizes it in a method so that it can be accepted all in excess of the world. Make sure that your website have good title depends on your business, use header tag, Description; what your site says. Web designs Delhi have good keywords relevant to your webpage use alt tag for every image, Check for broken links and correct HTML. In web design web designers and developers are the heart and soul of the Internet. If you have skills in web design or web development you can make a growing income on the Internet. The secret to making money with your Web Design Delhi and development skills is to include web hosting in your web design or web development quotes or standard packages. Providing hosting for your web design clients will give you greater assurance that your customers will come back to you to make changes or update their site. Web Design Delhi allows you to keep generate income from your work and customer base. On top of this, remember your client is more probable to come back to you to update and maintain your site which means more money for you, for easy work. People are looking for web designers to get their sites on the Internet. In Web Design Delhi with a little attempt and focus you could generate a very healthy income in your web design business. In Web Design Delhi with tools like Joomla, Word Press and other highly customizable content management systems you can make the hard work incredibly efficient so you can focus solely on the design

With these easily installable web applications in Web Design Delhi you can very rapidly impress your customers and raise the value of your web intend fees - and the fact that they are professional personalized web submission you have put together, your web design customer will be happy to pay your hosting fees.

Friday, October 21, 2011

A Quick Look At Badge Reels

Badge reels are an attractive way for employees to display their company ID badges. Retractable are especially convenient in situations where employees need to swipe their card through a scanner or present it to a security guard for inspection. Instead of wasting time fumbling around in their wallet or purse, your employees will be able to instantly access their ID card. However, unlike other options for displaying badges or ID cards, the retractable reel keeps your employees' badge close without it getting in their way all the time. Retractable reels can also be used in recreational settings for things such as keeping your keys safe or displaying your badge during a Little League game.

So what kinds of badge reels are available? Most providers of retractable reels offer five different series. Within each of these series, there are normally multiple color options available. The first series of badge reels is plastic. This is the most popular series, and works well in many different situations. The second series is heavy duty. This series is designed to withstand the weight of heavier items. The third series of badge reels is the ski and sports series. Because of their design and color scheme, these reels stand out. Therefore, they are perfect for companies or organizations that want their members to be easily identifiable. Even though these reels are very light weight, the plastic they are made from is quite durable.

The fourth series of reels are the silver or gold metal reels. These retractable reels feature a lanyard hook, which make them the perfect option for carrying keys or other similar items. The last series of badge reels are the Premier series. As the name implies, these reels are a cut above the rest. Premier retractable reels are made from chrome and plastic. They feature an extra long cord, and have a special clip on top that makes them very easy to use.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Web Hosting: The Very Basics

Web hosting is what allows people and businesses to make a website that can be accessed by millions of people all over the world. Web hosts companies allow these businesses to place their website on their server, which means that the website can then be accessed by anyone with an internet connection.

The web host you choose for your website will depend on the size of your site and how much you are willing to pay for such services. Many small web hosts don’t have the ability to manage large sites, but are perfect for providing individual attention to small individual websites.

In addition, it is important to choose a web host that have an excellent uptime. Most internet surfers have very little patience when it comes to waiting for a site to upload. They often move on to another site if the link isn’t instant. Therefore, look for a web host with at least a 99% uptime to keep people coming to your site. 99.9% uptime or greater is ideal.

There are several types of web hosting. Free web hosting services often are connected with some type of advertising. This type of service is not very common. It is likely that any web hosting you receive is going to cost you money. Shared web hosting is cheaper because your website will be available on a server with hundreds of other websites. They will all be connected to the same CPU.

Reseller web hosting is common. This practice allows customers to purchase hosting services, and then resell portions of it to make money. This process can be complicated if you don’t deal with it on a regular basis. Virtual server hosting gives the illusion that consumers are on their own server. In reality they are sharing, but with a smaller group of websites than with shared web hosting. Virtual server hosting splits the server up into equal portions for each consumer it is sold to. That time and space is reserved for that particular website whether it is accessed or not. Virtual server hosting is the most expensive.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Bucket of Water for a Thirsty

SEO Delhi Company e-Fuzion includes different search engines, which are tools that make the job search process comparatively easy. This SEO seo delhi, seo services delhi, seo services, seo services india, seo india, web promotion services, web promotion indiaDelhi Company have a wide category of website lists of various fields may be it is cultural or technical. SEO Delhi offers services in all the leading search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo and other well known search engines. But among all Google is the most prominent search engine. In which you get more number of visitors. It fires the queries over the internet and gets the best possible matches. SEO Delhi Company e-Fuzion fires the queries over the internet and gets the best possible matches. The indexes of SEO Delhi Company e-Fuzion search engines are mainly from the web sites of the employers. Different are greatly benefited due to the vertical search engines since they are able to locate new job openings, which are not available through traditional web search engines because vertical search engines provide information about specific business. A search engine is a tool that makes the job search process comparatively easy. These engines have a wide category of job lists of various fields including engineering, insurance, and social work, legal and teaching. A job search engine works similar to Google. It fires the queries over the internet and gets the best possible matches. SEO Delhi Company e-Fuzion’s search engine services provide a list of searching according to keywords entered while searching.

The emergence of vertical search or Meta search engines, which is the latest trend in web searching methodologies, enables the profit seekers to have a glance at the wide and multiple web sites that are available on the internet. Some of the latest search engines provide index about the primary long-established web boards. Search engines are used mainly because they cut down on the search time.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Working With New Administrative Staff

Not long ago, one of my clients in the real estate business hired the perfect person as his office manager and administrative assistant. She had most of the qualifications he was looking for and a great personality. But like many business leaders discover, hiring the right person is one thing, and getting them in step with your expectations is another.

The challenge in working with someone new is - managing expectations. What are the priorities? How do you want things done? When do you want things done?

And even more complications arise - like when managers have difficulty communicating, or delegating tasks they have been doing themselves for so long.

My client was no exception. Frustrated by this all too familiar dynamic, he asked me to help him develop strategies to turn this situation into a positive and productive working relationship.

The key to helping this client was to explore what was working and what wasn't. What he was doing and how she was reacting. And to get a handle on what the expectations truly were. From that, I was able to give him a list of strategies tailored to his particular situation.

Instead of telling you what it was that I suggested to him, I think it would be more valuable to share what he did that worked.

1. Be patient
2. Develop a relationship before you expect high performance
3. Make the goals clear, and explain why they are important
4. Let them make mistakes
5. Don't expect them to be at the level you are at
6. Be kind
7. Don't point out every fault - show what you'd "prefer"

Few working relationships are without some sort of stress or strain along the way. That's normal. But for situations where things just aren't working, implementing some strategies for managing expectations and communicating clearly will go a long way in preventing you from having to start all over again.

Monday, October 17, 2011

How To Get Quality Traffic To Your Website

Lets face it.Starting a brand new website with the hope of achieving a large amount of targeted visitors is a very difficult task for most internet newcomers or even people who have had websites online for some time.This is mainly due to the fact gaining high quality organic webtraffic revolves around being able to do extensive link building in order to gain higher page ranks, ultimately resulting in better search engine rankings(SERP), and hopefully more targeted traffic to your website.Naturally,link building is an essential part of website optimisation.Building backlinks to obtain a higher ranking in search engines can be a tedious task if you do not have the knowledge on how to go about it correctly.This however,is only one of the many important components of making a successful website.

Other important factors include the use of relevant page content, correct optimisation of your meta tags,linking with other websites in the same niche and most importantly, your keywords used which people will use to find your website on the internet.Most people are unfortunately unaware of these important factors which are essential for a websites success.This is where I would like to help you put a stop to all of these above problems.I utilise a product called "Michael's Traffic Videos" which shows you 16 different easily achievable methods of gaining high quality organic traffic.It is spread over 49 DVD Videos covering aspects such as Cost Effective Pay Per Click strategies,off line website promotion, highest quality link exchange databases,press release secrets,viral traffic strategies and the list simply goes on.Now you are probably saying to yourself, this must be another one of the many hoaxes of getting internet traffic.Well I'll leave that decision up to you.If you would like to find out more about it please visit my home page below.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Running A Work At Home Internet Business

Running a work at home internet business is something that requires dedication and plenty of skills. Many people are led to believe that anyone can run a work at home internet business. They are told it is easy and so simple that it will practically run itself. What people do not often understand is that internet businesses usually do run themselves, but it still takes plenty of work on the business owners part to get the business started and to keep it up and running.

A work at home internet business is really no different from a physical business in that it takes time to get it started. A work at home internet business still requires plenty of marketing work that needs to be done by the business owner. No automated system will take care of marketing. It also requires the business owner to maintain the records and to watch over the operations of the business.

When people hear that a work at home internet business runs itself, they are usually being told that the actual sales and customer relations are handled by an automated system. Additionally, automated systems can handle aspects of marketing. However, automated systems can not handle everything, so that still leaves some work for the business owner.

The internet marketplace also lends itself to many automated features. The internet is running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so the business is selling all the time. This is why automated systems are so popular, but as mentioned they can not handle everything and the business owner will have to be responsible for things like marketing and handling some customer issues.

Automated systems can help with a lot of the responsibility of running a work at home internet business. However, there are still many things the business owner has to be responsible for in order to run their business successfully. Running a work at home internet business will require work no matter if it is using an automated system or not.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Is Your Company's Stress Management Program Stressful In Itself?

Some simple advice — and pass-along strategies — for reducing stress in the workplace.

Stress is costing American business big time. Estimates range from $80 billion to $300 billion annually in illnesses, absenteeism, diminished productivity, accidents, mistakes, burnout, high turnover, and soaring health insurance premiums.

It's no surprise, then, that many companies have been fighting the stress epidemic aggressively with an arsenal of anti-stress initiatives. But a nagging question remains. If all the stress management programs out there are so effective, why are so many workers still stressed out?

The answer may lie in the fact that some organizations are simply trying too hard. In an effort to reduce stress, they are actually adding to it. As well-intentioned as their stress programs may be, many are complex and time-consuming, require a lot of reading and recall, are heavy on theory and light on practical advice, or just don't connect with employees on their level...or with their specific problems.

Remember, what people who are stressed out lack most is time...and patience. They have no time to attend lengthy stress seminars that pull them away from the very tasks that are stressing them out. They have little patience to sift through wordy guides and procedures to dig out those rare nuggets of advice relevant to their situation. Some stress programs merely address the symptoms of stress rather than eliminate the causes. They have little lasting effect. Workers become frustrated and cynical, believing that nothing will work, and go right back to their costly, stressful ways.

What, then, can management and human resources professionals do to overcome these obstacles to effective stress management, and "reach" their employees with solutions that will connect...and stick? A good way to start is to offer simple, candid, targeted strategies workers can quickly incorporate into their lives—techniques that get their attention and produce immediate results. These are less intrusive, take little or no time to implement, and get the user started on the right track, with the right attitude. To give you some examples, I've selected the following ten workplace strategies I use in my books and seminars, which have been field-tested with positive feedback from thousands of readers and participants worldwide. Simply pass them along by email or interoffice memo. I believe they can have a significantly positive effect on your employees, too.

Do one thing at a time.

Do it mindfully. Do it well. Enjoy the satisfaction. Then go on to the next thing. Multitasking might work for computers, but humans have yet to get the hang of it. A growing body of evidence affirms that trying to accomplish several things at once takes up more time overall than doing them sequentially. It consumes an excessive amount of mental energy, too, so you fatigue more quickly. The lack of focus also leads to careless mistakes, shoddy work and unreliable performance. Worst of all, having to do things over. This is no way to live. Give what you're doing your undivided attention. Take the time to get it right. You'll be more productive, and less stressed, in the long run.

Chip away at projects with long lead times.

When you get an assignment with a "luxury" of time, don't squander it. Get at least a start on it right away, when your enthusiasm and understanding of it are at a peak. Then spend a little time on it each day to keep the momentum going. That way, every thought you have of the project will be a positive one: "I'm on the case, I'm getting it done." Put it off, and every thought will be increasingly negative: "Yikes, I haven't even started yet!" Which can add up to big stress over time. And a major crisis as the deadline nears, you've forgotten what to do, and your enthusiasm has been supplanted by anxiety and dread. Get it going early. You'll do a better job, in less time, without the stress.

Don't let unhealthy job stress persist.

If your workload or project is impossible to complete without pulling your hair out, doing a slapdash job or suffering a near stroke for your trouble, speak up early on rather than bottle it up and be unable to perform the work accurately and professionally. And do it in a positive way, by offering possible solutions: you'll need more time; you can do part of the project in the allotted time; or you'll require more help. If you're a good competent worker your request should command respect and compliance. It doesn't help anyone to say nothing and let it eat away at your well-being, and subject both you and your company to poor performance.

Delegate.

Stress is often caused by an inability to let go, a constant need to micromanage, the fear that everything will fall apart the minute you turn your back. It leaves you hung up on time-consuming details, stifles the participation and growth of others, and creates unnecessary tension all around. Take the leap of faith. Learn to delegate. Assign responsibilities and give others the chance to prove themselves. You can dole it out gradually, to gain confidence and minimize error, but begin unburdening yourself of the oppressive minutia that's needlessly choking your life. You can experience a marked reduction in stress in a relatively short period of time simply by delegating.

Be a team player.

It's more productive—and less stressful—to work as a team. In your job, in your family, in your community. When you spread the work and responsibility around the pressure eases, everyone becomes more cooperative. As much as we like to think of ourselves as complete packages, we're not. We need others to contribute what we lack, to balance out our collective strengths and weaknesses. Let go the urge to put it all on yourself or take all the credit. Society is a team effort and success most gratifying when everyone's involved.

Rotate working on different projects.

For example, if you have three projects due next week, performing them in their entirety one after the other can make each seem long, drawn out and tiresome. Instead, divide your time each day into thirds and work on all three. Each project will provide a refreshing break from the others, while allowing you to make steady progress on all. Like a farmer rotating crops to keep the soil rich and fertile, varying tasks will keep you more alert and imaginative, making the work proceed more quickly and enjoyably.

Are you a checkaholic?

How much time do you waste excessively checking things. Check the weather. Check the time. Check the markets. Check your email. Check your hair. Check your voicemail. Check the news. Check your makeup. Check to see if your wallet is still in your pocket. How much of your day are you frittering away doing this? More than you might care to know. Ease up. Things aren't going to fall apart when you're not looking. So resist the urge to receive constant, needless, monotonous updates. Use that time to maintain your focus and get more done. When you get the urge to check on something...simply let it go.

Forget about deadlines. How about startlines?

For a society so obsessed with when a project gets finished, we're curiously all too casual about when to get it started. And that can be the most critical factor of all. Which may explain why so many deadlines aren't met. Instead of stressing over when something is due, focus on getting it underway. Set a "startline." That is, a time before which it's essential you get a project started, so it isn't performed in a rushed and slapdash manner. If you stick to your startline, it not only assures efficient, unhurried performance, it all but eliminates the need for a deadline...and the anxiety that goes with it. Which "line" would you rather work under? Get it started.

Be a good gear switcher.

You may have the kind of job where you constantly have to drop something to take care of something else. This can be a never-ending source of stress and frustration. If you let it. Or, as unlikely as it seems now, you can condition yourself to get used to it...even enjoy it! When you prepare yourself for such interruptions, you can make a clean break without anxiety, knowing you'll return later on to tie up loose ends. Just give whatever you're doing at the moment your undivided focus...and let it go promptly when necessary. Quick transitioning is a skill, an art you can learn, master and take satisfaction in.

Stand up and stretch.

Especially if you have a desk or computer job. A day at work shouldn't be like an eight-hour plane ride. Periodically get off your chair and stand, stretching your arms and legs—even squatting, bending from side to side, rolling your head, walking about, etc. It'll get the blood flowing more freely, loosen cramped muscles and joints, help you think more clearly, and relieve some of the stress. Give your body a quick tune-up at least one or two minutes each hour.

Maintain your presence of mind.

It's easy to get flustered, panic and lose your composure when you're rushed and pressured. Your mistake level soars, carelessness abounds and civility often goes out the window. Only making things worse. Practice maintaining your presence of mind in pressure situations. Take slow deep breaths and approach the crisis with calmness and control. You'll discover you can handle things more efficiently, even more quickly, when you strive to keep your cool. Hysteria accomplishes nothing.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Website Startup Guide - Mix And Match Your Advertising Offerings

There are literally thousands of people out there right now who want to start their own online business. The problem is where to begin and how to get started.

Oh sure, they know they can buy a domain and a web hosting account, but that is not the problem. The hold up is that they don’t know what to sell on their websites that will allow them to make a nice income to supplement the income from their regular jobs.

Day and night, people browse this World Wide Web looking for a hint or an insight that will point them in the direction of the next big thing on the internet.

Let’s be honest. Most people who want to start an online business are only looking for enough extra income to pay an extra car payment or to buy some clothes for their kids. Not everyone is looking to get rich online.

Looking For Something To Sell

Most people online who are looking for an opportunity to make money look first to common themes of products they already buy.

If you go to Google and type in “flowers” for your search, you will find 339 million pages found. If you take the same search to Yahoo, you will still find 202 million results. With that kind of competition, why would anyone want to try to break into that industry as an online entrepreneur?

Suppose the next thought takes the aspiring entrepreneur to “jewelry”? A Google search will turn up 551 million to Yahoo’s 261 million pages. Again, why would someone try to tackle such an overcrowded marketplace?

On top of that, as part-time entrepreneurs looking for some extra money, they don’t have the time or resources to try to knock heads with these major corporations who run the competing websites in these markets.

Add to that the need to handle actual products and product fulfillment, and your part-time start-up entrepreneur really starts to lose interest. People tend to shy away from product fulfillment related industries. Their homes are already crowded enough without adding retail products to their space.

Something To Sell That Does Not Require A Warehouse or a Huge Investment

It is at about this time the opportunity search changes gears. There are many forks in the road, and the road you choose can be as hard or as easy as you make it for yourself.

Where to go from here:

1.Digital products – E-books and Software
2.Product Drop-Shipping
3.Affiliate programs
4.On-site Advertising

Let’s look at each one of these individually:

Digital Products – E-Books and Software

We all have some kind of knowledge to share. If you determine that you have some kind of knowledge that you can share, then there is likely someone out there in the world who would be willing to pay you to obtain that same knowledge.

E-books are an ideal way to disseminate this information. With the e-book format, there are no printing costs, since your book is stored as a digital file. Self-publishing a digital ebook is not nearly as hard as you might think it would be.

Software is a similar beast. Since it is a digital product, you don’t have to cover the costs of packaging and distribution. You can sell your software online, cutting out the middleman, keeping the extra profits for yourself.

Product Drop-Shipping

Some wholesale companies will allow you to buy products from them on a piecemeal basis. Of course, the cost is a bit higher than what it would be if you bought products a pallet at a time, but the convenience to you more than makes up for the additional cost.

The “drop-shippers” allow you to sell a product to your customers, and then you can take the money you collected from your customer to the drop-shipper. The drop-shipper will ship the product directly to your customer.

In some cases, the drop shipper will even put your own custom label on the outside of the container, making the fact that you used a drop-shipper completely unseen by your customer.

To find wholesale companies who offer drop-shipping services, check these folks out: http://www.vasrue.com/dt/t.php?id=167

Affiliate programs

With an Affiliate program, you can register with a seller, and the seller will give you a unique URL that you can use to promote their products or services. When someone uses “your affiliate URL” to visit the seller’s website, the seller will track that person until the visitor leaves the site. (Some Affiliate sellers will drop a cookie on the computer of the visitor, and if that person returns to the seller’s website within one year, then you will get credit for that visitor returning to the seller’s website.) If the visitor buys a product or service from the seller, then your account will be credited for bringing a buyer to the website. This will result in your earning a commission for bringing the buyer and seller together.

On-Site Advertising

Both Google and Yahoo’s Overture services offer an option to webmasters to carry their advertising on your website. When someone clicks a link on your website and visits the advertiser’s website, then you would get paid a small payment for having connected the potential buyer to the seller’s website.

This is a type of advertising that pays you when someone visits the seller’s website. Contrast that with the Affiliate program, which pays you when someone buys a product from the seller’s website, and then you can see the fine line difference between the two types of advertising.

How Much Can You Make Utilizing On-Site Advertising?

Truth be told, there are a lot of people on the internet who makes tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars per month --- yes, I said, “per month” --- using only Google’s on-site advertising program, called Adsense. The rest of us make hundreds or thousands per month.

The truth is that with Google’s contextual advertising program called Adsense, your income is based on what the advertisers are willing to pay for your traffic and how much traffic you can generate.

The Profit-and-Loss Factor for the Advertiser

It is a matter of profit-and-loss for the advertiser. If the advertiser pays one dollar for a visitor, and every 35th visitor buys what the advertiser is selling, then the advertiser is getting one buyer for every $35 spent. If the advertiser’s profit margin is enough to afford spending $35 to acquire one customer, then the advertiser will feel his advertising is worthwhile, and he will keep on coming back for more advertising.

If on the other hand, the advertiser is only earning a gross profit of $20 per transaction, then he or she will have a hard time justifying the $35 advertising expenditure.

This is why you will find that most Google and Yahoo advertisers are only willing to spend 25 or 50 cents to get one visitor to their website.

And then depending on a number of factors, you will only earn 30-50% of the gross revenue that Google or Yahoo earned for that visitor.

Taking the lowest case denominator approach, 30% of 25 cents is roughly eight cents that you will be paid for each visitor that you send to an advertiser.

Some of these guys who are knocking down ten thousand dollars a month are actually doing so at eight cents per click! What is their secret to success? They are getting thousands of people to visit their website everyday.

The Profit-and-Loss Factor for the Affiliate Seller

On the flip side, let us take a look at the same scenario for the Affiliate seller. Instead of paying for visitors, advertisers are paying for actual sales.

The Affiliate seller knows his or her margin well enough to know that they can afford to pay anywhere from 2-50% of the actual transaction amount to the person who referred the buyer to their website.

The Affiliate seller is not paying for advertising on a gamble, instead, they are paying for advertising on a sure thing.

It is not unheard of to earn $20, $50 or $200 on a single Affiliate sale transaction.

If you are able to convert one person in thirty-five to buyers of an affiliate product or service, you could conceivably make more money with less traffic, than the guys knocking down the big bucks with Adsense.

Mix-and-Match For The Greatest Success

This is really important to your bottom line. If you fail to heed my advice, your website may fail to survive.

Unless you are the owner of a product or service sales website, then you will be relying on the various advertising opportunities to survive.

You are best to mix-and-match your offers for the greatest success. Yes, do set up Google Adsense on your site, but also set up Affiliate programs on your site.

You may sell a few products each week, and the sale from those products might make a good income for you. But, for the people who arrived on your site who are not interested in your main offering, give them another advertisement to click on before they leave. This way, you can get the Pay-Per-Click advertising revenue from those people who chose not to buy the products and services that you are selling through the Affiliate programs.

Diversification Is Your Key To Success

Don’t let yourself be fooled by the idea that you can be profitable with only one product or service offering or advertising revenue generator. Many people have entered this medium with a Made For Adsense (MFA) site, and many of those people have gone out of business in just a few months.

Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Or else, when you fall, you will have nothing to show for all of your hard work.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Six Tips On How You Can Create Joint Ventures With A Competitor

The first step to developing profitable Joint Ventures is to identify and develop relationships with other business owners who can help you reach your target market.

Business competition has been viewed with a wary eye for far too long. The internet is a big, big place. There really is room for everybody - everybody that knows how to properly market themselves that is.

Who better to partner with but those who are already serving your target market? They have mailing lists subscribers, website visitors, podcast listeners, membership sites members, partners, affiliates and friends who you would love to be introduced to and who better to make the introduction?

Look around the internet marketing world and you'll observe many strategic JV relationships between business owners who would seem to be in direct competition with each other, yet they are cooperating on projects all the time.

Imagine your main competitor emailing his list and inviting them to check out what you have to offer.

It can happen. So here are six easy tips to help you increase your website traffic through joint venturing with a competitor.

1. Co-author a two part article.
Article marketing continues to be an important activity for online business owners. Whether you are crafting articles for distribution or writing them to keep on your own site as exclusive original content, you do need to be writing on a regular basis.

Approach a competitor with an email like this:

Hi ,

I think my web visitors would be pretty interested in your products and I have an idea for us to co-promote our websites. I hope you'll be interested.

Let's come up with a topic to write a two part article about. I'll write part one and publish it on my website and I'll tell readers that they can find part two on your website. You write part two and publish it on your website, letting your readers know that part one can be found on my website.

We both have added some original content to our site and we're sending each other some fresh traffic. Sounds easy enough to me. I have a few ideas for article topics too.

Want to give it a try?

Regards,

2. Co-author a two part report.
This can be as simple as the article idea only kicking it up a notch by asking for some more cooperation from the partners. You'll work together in creating the report; giving both of you credit and links back to your websites.

The resulting small report can then be given away by both partners on their website. You can even turn it into a viral tool and allow others to freely give it away with the understanding that they cannot remove your author info or links.

Alternatively, if you wish to sell the small report you can jointly purchase a domain and set up a mini site, work on the sales letter together, co-sign it and split the profits. This may be a lot to chew for a young JV relationship - you don't want to start mixing money too soon.

3. Conduct an interview of each other for your lists.
If you both have an area of expertise you can put a twist on a plain old ad swap and take turns interviewing each other email interview style.

You'll send a list of questions to the other person, collect their answers and then share this email interview with your mailing list.

Be sure to ask them questions that lead them into sharing about their products and services but don't make it too promotional in nature. Get them to share some really useful information with your readers.

Now they can do the same for you. This takes the exposure trade to a great new level. Your readers will know that you really respect the person you interviewed why else would you take the time to do it? There's a lot of implied trust that will go a long ways towards encouraging list members to check out what the interviewee has to offer.

You could also crank it up another notch and make it an audio interview and offer the mp3 link for your members to download or create a page where they can listen online and access links to the resources mentioned.

Both of you get valuable content to offer your list with no strings attached and that is a good thing.

4. Give away bonus products
Let's explore some great ideas in this area. The first examples that come to mind are information products. Imagine that you and your potential JV partner are both in the weight loss field. Your competitor is releasing a new ebook about exercise. You can offer her a complimentary free special report bonus to give away with the product that is all about gentle stretching techniques.

Another example would be for physical product sellers. You sell food mixes and your JV partner sells kitchen tools. You can prepare some sample packets and send her a bundle, allowing her to give one away with each order.

In both cases you are giving them something to promote and emphasize on their website in a way that helps them get more sales. And at the same time, you and your products get extra exposure.

Other bonus ideas would include audios, videos, email coaching, etc.

5. Co-operate on an event.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone from your field and found that you love the same topics? Take that synergy and turn it into a Teleseminar or web conference.

In much the same way that you would have cooperated on an article or small report, work out an outline of content together and plan out who will cover what aspects of your topic developing a rough script.

Set a date, arrange for a bridge phone line or web conference room and create some promotional materials.

Both of you will promote the event inviting your friends to do the same of course.

At the event you both get an opportunity to let your expertise shine to each other's followers. Participants will see both of you as having the "know how" they need so you should be sure to include an invitation to subscribe to your respective mailing lists and feel free to make a pitch for a complimentary product.

As always you can add some spice and do a multi-date event, inviting other speakers to join you. With you and your partner at the top of the list as event hosts you're setting yourselves up as leaders in your community.

The options in this arena are wide you can make attendance free or charge for admission. You can sell recordings and transcripts later or give them away to your lists as a gift.

6. Share Affiliate Programs
If you're really serious about finding ways to cooperate and partner with your competition, you have to have something that answers the "What's in it for me?" questions that you'll be getting.

If I'm going to tell my list about you I'd love to get a commission on any sales I send your way. Sure, I may do it even without the financial incentive but we are in business here right?

It definitely sweetens the pot for that first contact as well, when you can tell them that any new customers they refer to you will result in lifetime residual commissions for them.

If you don't have an affiliate program now, what's holding you back? How you can start a co-operation with your competitor?

Give them the spotlight first.

A potential JV will always be a little warmer to someone who has already showed themselves willing to share the love with others particularly them.

Mention them in your newsletter tell your list something you really like about what he/she does or offers.

Blog about their products or services. Mention them in your podcast. If they are like most internet business owners, they'll have Google Alerts or Technorati Tags set up to alert whenever anyone publishes their business name so they'll probably know right away that you've been giving them some buzz. But just in case they aren't aware, don't hesitate to send a short email linking to your mention of them saying something like Just wanted you to know I think you're great.

Ask if they'd be interested.
Like the example I shared above in the article partnering section you simply need to ask the person for what you want.

Give them all of the information they need but don't make the email a mile long.

Be personable. If your email sounds too business like, they may think it's a form letter. Address them by name.

Compliment them. Tell them what you like about what they do and why you are interested in partnering with them. Ask for their suggestions. Be open to their counter offer.

Make it as easy for them to say yes.

You are asking them to act in some way so you can't make it effortless, but you can offer to do any necessary footwork.

Further followup.
When you've successfully partnered on something small and both parties have enjoyed the experience and benefit, you have laid the foundation of a potentially long term fruitful partnership.

Let your partner know that you're open to new ideas and invite them to contact you anytime.

If you truly trust them, let them in on some of your future plans and ask them if they have interest in partnering on one or several of the projects.

When partnerships begin to involve money over the long term, you are delving into a whole new level of trust and accountability. Make sure that you have all of the legal and financial points covered and don't hesitate to seek out the advice of professionals in this area.

There are some great resources out there when you're ready to dig deeper and you have a partner willing to work with you on a big project.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

9 Key Business Startup Success Principles

If you are in the early stages of starting up a business then you may be experiencing the internal 'fear and doubt' dialogue that can often take place in one's mind. The following 9 Principles will help to release some of this tension...

1. Do What You Love

Ensure that you are in a business that interests you. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be in love with the product or service that you sell; however, you must enjoy aspects of the business otherwise you won't be motivated to give it 100% of your focus. And it will need a lot of your focus and energy, especially in the early stages!

To help determine this point, you could ask yourself the following types of questions:

* What do you really like to do (in a business sense)?

* Are you an ideas or action type of person? Or a bit of both?

* In which 20% of your talents do 80% of your results come from?

* In other words, where do your key skills lie?

It really all boils down to one question though - what are you really passionate about?

2. Niche

Another critical point which goes a long way to determining business success is your Niche. Without exception, the majority of successful business owners I know can tell you in a couple of sentences exactly what it is they love to do and why it has made them wealthy.

Without a precise understanding of your Niche your chances for success are greatly diminished. After all, it’s very difficult to hit a target which doesn’t exist or to win a game when you don’t know what it (winning) is.

Ask yourself what you are trying to achieve in this business venture:

* Do you want to make quick cash?

* Do you want to develop and grow a sustainable business?

* Are you interested in high cash-flow or developing assets? Or both?

* Do you have BIG aspirations or are you just looking to develop a hobby for some part-time cash?

Keep in mind that your Niche can always be adapted down the track if your situation or the market changes.

3. Leverage

You need to become a master of Leverage. It is one of the most powerful principles in business. Everyone who is successful in business and life uses Leverage in some way.

To use the concept of Leverage you need to continually examine how you can access other people’s skill, resources and money more effectively. Furthermore, consider less obvious assets in business such as systems, marketing and time.

Leverage is about duplicating a high-value item or skill at a lower cost.

I will explore this topic in depth in future articles; however, at this point it is important to remember the following points:

* Focus on Money-Making activities

* Delegate to others as much as possible

By doing this you will see an immediate increase in your ability to work ‘on’ your business, rather than getting stuck ‘in’ the day to day running of it.

Lateral Thinking shares an implicit relationship with Leverage...

4. Lateral Thinking

This is the concept of looking at things from a different point of view. You can increase profits significantly by doing simple things to “Add Value” in ways that others are not.

In other words, continually look at your business and ask yourself questions such as:

* How can we do, what we do, better?
* What do our clients want that they are not getting currently?
* Could we use affiliate marketing to grow our business?
* Do we currently use the internet to effectively market our business?
* Could we join forces with another business to cross-promote our products?
* Could we use our knowledge to create another product?

What I am suggesting here is to take some time out to brainstorm ideas around your business. This is a difficult for most small business owners to achieve because they see this as wasted and unproductive time - nothing could be further from the truth...

Some of the most successful companies in the world allow themselves and their employees lateral thinking time - Google and 3M immediately come to mind. Many of Google's most successful products have originated from this process.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you have to take 1 day a week (as Google does) to undertake this process - they have high operating margins and therefore significant leverage. However, I would encourage you to consider ‘opening you mind’ for at least couple of hours each week to explore further opportunities.

I am sure that you will find it a valuable and profitable experience if you stick to it!

5. Testing

If you can start your business with a clear idea of how you are going to monitor your systems, resources and assets then you will be well ahead of the pack. When most business owners are confronted with questions about their average transaction value, sales conversion ratios, enquiry and lead generation rates - they come up with varying excuses or reasons as to why they don’t know or have this vital information.

DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!!

You need to be able to calculate your ROI (Return on Investment) for everything that you do on a regular basis.

To do this develop a set of KPI (Key Performance Indicators) that are appropriate for your business - don’t go overboard - just focus on the information that you need. Remember that 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities! The key is to discover the 20% and keep improving them...

The other benefit of testing is that it encourages us to recognise mistakes and move on - this is a vital part of the growth process. Without action, mistakes and growth we stagnate and/or wither at the vine!

6. Efficiency

Hard work doesn’t guarantee success or profits - look at how wealth is apportioned in the world and this soon becomes apparent - 80% of the wealth is controlled by less than 10% of the population.

Personally, it took a long time for this penny to drop! The first business I owned was really just a job in disguise. I was caught in a trap that confronts many small business owners - working IN the business, rather than ON the business.

This is a critical distinction...

If significant profits and growth are what you desire, then it is critical that you become efficient and develop systems that will allow your business to work for you and not the other way around.

There is one key concept to remember when implementing anything...

7. Lag

Lag is the concept that you ‘reap what you sew’. In other words, if you follow the principles suggested here and persist - you will succeed!

However, your business life is going to provide you with numerous challenges and obstacles to overcome. The biggest difference between successful people and the rest is that successful people look at upsets as a chance to grow and learn rather than as failure.

When confronted by a setback, rather than giving into fear and quitting you must continue to persist. Why? Because if your principles are sound, all you have to do is keep adjusting your methodology until you have a formula for success.

You will have a much greater chance of success in business if you keep the principle of Lag in the back of your mind, stay focused and never give up!

8. Timing

Timing is an essential aspect of business ownership. It also shares a close bond with decision-making and action-taking. If you continually use Lateral Thinking and Testing then you will certainly discover further opportunities. The key to successfully implementing and taking advantage of these opportunities is Timing.

As the old sayings go:

If you wait too long, you may miss the boat... (e.g. someone else capitalizes)

If you jump right in you may get your fingers burnt... (e.g. misjudged market enthusiasm)

You need to find a middle ground when it comes to Timing, because it is very difficult to time things perfectly. Combine focused analysis, gut feeling, enthusiasm and decision making together and you will be well on the way to mastering Timing and the next Principle...

9. Action

Successful business owners are Masters of Action. They know that Action always beats inaction. They understand that it is better to try, make a mistake, refine and re-implement than to do nothing at all. That’s because in business:

INACTION = A SLOW DEATH

Unsuccessful business owners are Masters of Excuses. Fear provides them with an endless stream of seemingly logical reasons why they shouldn’t act.

You need to make a decision right now - will you accept as doctrine your negative internal dialogue and the nay-sayers - or will you take chances and trust your experience?

I would suggest the latter...

To take Action, it is critical that you take responsibility for your situation. If you are not where you want to be, then justifying or laying blame on others will not solve the situation - it will just add fuel to your negative mindset.

A better way to respond is to focus on ‘the gap’ - the 20% of activities in your business (or life) that will take you from where you are to where you want to be. Goal setting is one of the best ways to define the ‘gap’ and taking Action is the best way to reduce it.

CONCLUSION: The most important Principle is that you should love what you do - passion and attitude will play a large part in defining your success in business. Therefore, ensure that you find a Niche that you are comfortable with. Apply the Principles outlined here, define your own rules and goals, and you will be well on the way to creating a successful and profitable business.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Building Your Own Website Is Easy

Website building, web development, how to build a website, domain name, hosting, web design

The reader will learn here how to build his own website even he is a newbie in web development.

Building a simple website is easy, even for non-IT people. If you have the following basic requirements, then you can create your own website.

Basic Requirements:

Basic knowledge of HTML
Computer set & Internet Connection
Website Design Layout or Template
Website Content
Domain Name and Web Space or Host

Let me explain to you each of the above requirements:

Basic Knowledge of HTML:

A website is composed of one or more web pages. A page layout is produced by using html codes or tags. HTML means Hyper-Text Markup Language and tags are enclosed by ‹ and › signs. If you have zero knowledge of html, well here is the outline of a web page:

Outline of a web page:

‹!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd" ›

‹html›

‹head›

‹title›

Here you will place the title of the page. The texts here are displayed at the topmost left of a browser or web page.

‹/title›

‹meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /›

‹meta name="keywords" content="you must type here the main keywords of your content like this keyword1,keyword2,keyword3,etc. Words that are frequently used in this page content must be included here for search engine optimization." /›

‹meta name="description" content="You must type here the summary of this page content using the page's main keywords for search engine optimization" /›

‹meta name="author" content="Your name here" /›

‹meta name="copyright" content="The year you built your website" /›

‹style type="text/css"›

This is the place for Cascading Style Sheets or known as CSS. CSS defines the styles you will use in your web page such as font color and size of the text, background image, boxes, etc. These are effected in the body but most of the style definitions affects only those areas where you use them.

‹/style›

‹/head›

‹body›

Here you will implement the layout using style definitions you have made in the "style" section. Without putting anything here the page will be blank except for the title that will appear at the topmost left of the page. You will also place here the content of your website. It may be mixed of texts, images, audios and videos.

‹/body›

‹/html›

The above must be saved as a html page with extension of html or htm. Your homepage or the starting page must be named as index.html or index.htm. When you open a site like this site, http://www.freetipsandwits.com, it will automatically search and open the index page.

To see it with your two eyes, copy the above html codes from ‹html› to ‹/html›, then open your Notepad and paste it. In the Notepad or its equivalent, Click File - Save - Type mywebpage.html or mywebpage.htm - Click All Files - Click OK. Then in the Windows Explorer or its equivalent, find the the file and open it...See the power of HTML. That's your first web page. With those few codes, you can create your own web pages. For more basics of creating a web page, click here.

Computer set & Internet Connection:

This is a computer equipment (desktop or laptop computer) that has a modem and internet connection (Dial-up or DSL). This means that you can access or surf the web. You will be using an internet connection to upload your web page files and to browse your website in action after uploading. You may use your own computer or you may rent in internet cafe, whichever is more comfortable to you.

Website Design Layout or Template:

Website Layout Design is the graphical presentation of your site in a web page. Like in http://Freetipsandwits.com, the page layout is composed of header box, right box, left box and footer box. The design layout will be your guide where to place your content in every web page.

If you don't have time to learn html or let's say, you are not interested in learning html, you still have options to have your web design layout. Buy or get free web templates from the web. If you have a budget and you want to have a design based on your preference, you may hire a coder or simply buy a web template.

Website Content:

This is the meat of the website. Your website is nothing without a content. It is like a house without people and furnishings. People are looking for contents. They want something from your website.

The content is the physical presentation of the purpose of your website. It may be personal (about your personal life or life of other people), community (a forum or discussion of a group of people), free or non-profit services (a directory, educational, tutorial, freebies, etc.) or commercial (for selling or marketing products or services).

Your content may include texts, graphics, sounds, videos, programs, etc. depending on your purpose or on what you like other people or visitors to see in your site and on the available materials with you. But, putting sounds, videos or softwares make require an advanced knowledge of html and scripts.

You may source your content materials from the web, free or priced. Check our directory of freebie sites or use Google and type "free web templates", "web templates", "web template freebies" or other keywords that are appropriate based on your need:

Domain Names and Web Space:

Domain Name:

A domain name usually consists of two or more parts, separated by dots. This is the unique text name corresponding to the IP address of the website. Example is http://www.ezinearticles.com. The rightmost label "com" is what we called the top-level domain (TLD). Other TLDs are .com, .net, .org, .biz, .ws, .tv, .info,etc... Sub-domains are the labels on the left next to TLD and are dependent on the domain to the right. "ezinearticles" is the sub-domain (second-level domain) and dependent of the ".com" domain.

Choose a descriptive name for your site to give short information to your target visitors on what your site is all about. You may use your own name too if you want to. For search engine optimization, it is advisable that you name your site with descriptive keywords. Each word must be separated by hyphen or dash like “best-online-business-ever.com”, “affiliate-marketing-guide.com” and “affiliate-program-reviews.com”.

To have your own second-level domain name, you have to pay for registration on a yearly basis with ICANN-accredited website-registrars but you may register a name for a number of years paying the equivalent amount. TLD's have different prices some are cheaper than others.

You may also go for free sub-domain with sites offering free hosting but it will be a third-level domain like in geocities, your website address will be http://yourchoicename.geocities.com or in tripod, it will be http://yourchoicename.tripod.com. Your domain name will be depedent of geocities or tripod.

If you really want to build a website using your own tradename and would like to earn profit from it, it would be better to at least invest a little amount of money. You may check if the name you plan to give to your site is still available by using search engine and type "domain name registration" or "register domain name".

Web Space and Hosting:

The next thing you need is the web space where you will place your registered domain name and other stuff for your site. Normally, domain names are offered with web space. If you register a domain, you will be given a free but limited web space.

Usually, a free web space is ad-supported and subject to a number of restrictions. Meaning, the hosting site will put an ad to your site without paying you and it will not allow you to do or put some stuff.

So, if you want a clean web space where you can do whatever you want "legally", it is advisable that you lease your own web space. It is also offered on a yearly basis but you may also lease it for a number of years.

You may buy or lease domain or web space separately. You may register a domain name from one website and lease a web space from another. If you register domain name separately from web host, then you need to link the namservers from your host to your domain name. The nameservers will be given to you by your host and you need to enter this to your domain DNS (Domain Name Servers) setup.

For more paid and free domain name registrants and web hosts, use search engine and type "domain name and webhosting" or "domain name registration" or "web hosting".

The following are the easy, simple and complete procedures to build your own website:

Determine your purpose of your website.

Prepare all the materials to be placed in your site as your website content.

Plan the lay-out or design of your site. Get free or buy template.

Create web pages. Learn our tutorial on creating your own web page or use ready-made web templates.

Name your site with keywords relevant to your site content.

Check the availability.

Buy domain name and web space or get free web-space.

Upload your web pages. You may upload your web files by web browser or by ftp. Check your with your host for instruction on how to do it.

Check your website live. Check all the links if all are working fine.

Submit your site to search engines and directories to inform the world that you have built your own website.

Now you build your own website and start making money online.

Monday, October 10, 2011

What Every Freelancer Should Know About Bidding And Winning Projects!

PROUD TO BE A FREELANCER

"Oh, he is still jobless! ...Doesn't do much apart from sitting on the computer and making what he calls a ‘career’!" If this is this how your mom describes you, welcome to the WWF (It is World Wide Freelancers’ club….What were you thinking? An Article on ‘Freelancers turning Wrestlers for a living’….well…you won’t have to turn to anywhere else for a living after you are through reading this article!). Whether you freelance part-time or full-time, first of all, I admire your courage for standing up for your convictions and claiming freedom, control and flexibility in your jobs and lives by opting to be a freelancer! Yes, I know, life isn’t exactly easy for a freelancer. I am myself one. But, it can be a lot better for a lot of us, if only we know, how to make projects fall in our lap one after the other! And that’s precisely what I am going to tell you about! So, Read on!

HOW TO WIN YOUR FIRST PROJECT AND MANY MORE PROJECTS THEREAFTER

Winning your first project can be quite a daunting task, since you have no feedback and no past record to show off. But as they say, where there is a will, there is a way. So, let's find the way!
Let me first reveal an insider's secret. Here it goes: Project managers don't choose the best freelancer over others (for there is no way they can test your abilities to determine whether you are the best), rather they eliminate the 'others' to be left with the 'chosen one'. In other words, winning a bid is not as much a selection process as an elimination process. It all boils down to marketing and selling yourself successfully. Yes, you've heard it right! You win a project largely because you have a winning strategy to market your skills and sell yourself and you make all the right moves.

There are broadly 3 steps to selling yourself successfully:

1. Kick for a start - Stand out to attract attention
2. Build up some steam - Enhance the interest
3. Raise a toast - Snap up the deal

STEP 1

In a virtual marketplace, there are provided four channels for your first communication with a project manager -Bidding your price, Project Completion Time, Bidding Details and Private messaging. Each of the four channels is a tool in your hands that you can wield to convert the project manager into 'your' client. Let's find out how.

Your Bid:

1) As a beginner you can't ask for the stars. Nevertheless, you should not be available at throw away prices, not even for the sake of competition. At the end of the day, you need to sustain yourself. Isn't that the whole point of having a job? That's why it's important that you estimate your skills, abilities and expertise honestly and fix a decent hourly rate for your services. Go ahead and do a survey of the average pricing for the job, if required. Then sit down and work out the estimated time it is going to take you to finish the project.

2) Now you can figure out what's going to be your bid for the project. So, go ahead and place your bid. Later on, you may even offer some discount on the final price estimated in this manner depending on the premium you put on winning this particular project and still end up with a decent price for your services. So, in short, learning to be a good business manager is your first step.

3) If you find the details provided in the project description insufficient to estimate your costs, then make an indicative bid and mention the same in the bid details that you communicate to the project manager. And don't hesitate in requesting the prospective client for more information. It would only go to display that you are seriously considering their project.

Your Bidding Details:

4) As the old Chinese proverb goes, ' If the first words fail, ten thousand will then not avail'. So, don't give in to the temptation of pasting the same pre-written script on every client's message board as you'll be easily caught on this one and even if you don't get caught, the absence of a project-specific context in your message won't bode well on your chances of winning the project. Study the requirements of each project carefully and then send bid details, in which you communicate to each prospective client your rationale behind the pricing, your time estimates, also talk about constant communication in case you are awarded the project.

Private Messaging:

5) Now, we come to the last but the most powerful tool in your hands- the Personal Message you send to the prospective client. You must use this opportunity to convince the client that you have the potential to carry out the assigned tasks with flying colors. Introduce yourself and your skill set in a brief, clear and to the point manner.

Instead of listing all the nice adjectives in the dictionary to describe yourself, just mention what you would do to demonstrate those qualities. For instance, instead of saying that you are hard working, organized and punctual, convey the same by mentioning that you've planned, based on your estimate, to dedicate 7 hrs each day for seven days to finish the project well in time.

Always back up your claims about your competence by hard facts. Make available to the client a sample of your work, a demonstration, any reference checks you can provide or whatever proof you can give of your credibility. And all this while, play by the rules or you'll be out of the game! What are the rules? Well, here is a small list for your reference: (Visit our website http://e-guru.in for comprehensive details!)

1.You are not supposed to message your prospective boss in your chat room language, and you’ll be surprised by how many of us do it and to what extent. A few of us just stop short of “asl plz”! You must reek of absolute professionalism right from the beginning.

2.Grammatical errors, misspelled words and typos won’t be pardoned. Run spell check, proofread and confirm correct language syntax before hitting the ‘send’ button.

3.Follow the KISS. In other words, Keep It Short and Simple. Your message must not end up as a lengthy rambling around the bush in circles. Talk about the project in some way in every sentence you type. Hint: use the key words mentioned in the project details.

4.Study the client’s profile carefully, dig out hidden information about him/her and use it to personalize your first message. You’ll be able to warm up quicker and better.

5.Neither beg for a project nor come across as a boasting and pompous snob. Maintain a reasonable balance between the two ends of the spectrum. Position yourself like a customer-oriented brand for the buyer.

6.Let your enthusiasm for winning the project and working on it shine through your messages.

7.In your bidding details and your personal message, always communicate in the project’s context and in terms of how can you bring this project the success that it deserves, all the while addressing the client by the username mentioned in the project. Avoid assuming a Mr. or Ms. If you don’t know for sure. Just addressing as ‘Dear User name” would do. Don’t talk in terms of what a great craftsman you are but talk about your vision for this project, how you see it happening successfully and in time!

8.Never bite the hand that feeds you. Do not give out your contact details in your messages, unless you get a kick out of mindless self-sabotage. You will surely be kicked out of the website and barred if you do that.

9.Focus on using your service provider’s rating and feedback system to forward your ambitions. Your ratings and feedback will stay there for the whole world to watch and marvel at. You can generate a tremendous amount of work inflow by providing your best services once you bag a project because your service quality is going to show in your profile!

STEP 2 AND STEP 3

You've caught the project manager's attention by displaying your sincere interest in their project and your eligibility to handle it through your well-crafted bidding details and a powerful introductory personal message. You've come across as a promising candidate for the project by showcasing your works and samples. So, you make the cut in the first elimination round. What next? In all probability, you'll be contacted by the client through the message board at this stage. No need to worry even if you are not!

Maintain a fresh presence on the clients' message board by updating them about your latest activities relevant to their project. Post messages to make the client feel you understand their needs. Stay pro-active. Once the client warms up in their communication with you, you’ll come to know you've got them interested.

And I can help you only till here. (I've got to keep some secrets to myself...! Visit our home site http://www.e-guru.in for more guidance! ) Now the ball is in your court. And, it's entirely your savoir-faire and business sense, or the lack of it that can make or break the deal for you.
Always hope and work for the best but be prepared for the worst. Freelancing isn't the easiest job, people!

THE FINAL WORD

Remember that you are your own one-man company and freelancing is your business. Approach it, manage it and run it with the same élan and poise with which you would run a conglomerate! You've got to get serious if you want serious results! Bring absolute professionalism and ethical practices to the fore. Think big. Most importantly, create a well chalked out strategy with your short and long-term goals in mind. Create a solid ground to establish your own brand and then see how your dreams take off on a flight to fulfillment!

A NEW BEGINNING

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Seo - Tips On Making Seo Blog Content Look Good

It is highly recommended that you SEO your blog content. It is not recommended however that you make your blog sound stiff and technical for the sake of attracting search engines. When it comes to actually incorporating your keywords into your blog copy keep in mind that the best blogs are the ones that sound casual. Nobody wants to read a robotic repetitive piece of copy.

One key to keeping your blog looking neat and readable is to keep the content less than 300 words. 250 words per blog is idea. Keeping them looking reasonably uniform and the same length is also more visually eye catching and more likely to keep curious eyeballs on your page and not someone else’s.

Another thing you need to note is the way the headline of your blog article looks. Shorter is almost always better. Long search engine optimized blog titles don’t work if they are cut off at the end. Make sure that any blog headlines that you have are.

You should also make sure that your blog headlines are not too commercial or corny sounding. For instance a blog title such as “Make thousands a day using SEO!” is not going to work as well as a subtler phrase such as “How SEO Let Me Quit My Day Job.” Corny headlines look like spam to a lot of people when they get them on their RSS feeds so their eyes simply glaze over when they see something like “Hoodia Miracle Weight Loss Drug!” or “Grow Bigger Breasts in Three Days.”

Unless the acronym is very well known you are also supposed to stay away from using them as headlines in your blog. However this is not advised if your SEO title is too long as in “Valuable tips for Utilizing Search Engine Tips for Blogs.” It is much better to keep the language very simple as in “Top SEO Tips!”

E-Learning & M-Learning In The Process Industries-Presenting The Business Case

Executive Summary:

Today’s business depends heavily on employees who are trained in the right skills that they need to run the business. It is not for nothing that an ideal business organization is also called "The Learning Organization". With shortage of staff due to competitive pressures like downsizing and outsourcing, it is highly critical for any business to ensure that all of its employees are trained regularly. This is especially so, for businesses like the process industry (chemical processing, oil & gas production, refining, petrochemical manufacturing, etc) who are heavily involved in engineering and technology, because of the rapid changes and advancements (and equally rapid obsolescence) in technology today. Not just technology changes, but the employees of these businesses have to be regularly trained in safety aspects of plant operations, to ensure safety & environment compliance.

Training employees and other stake-holders in your business regularly is a daunting task if attempted to do with the traditional instructor led training. In this White Paper, we examine the issues involved and see how e-learning can offer a better solution.

The challenge of learning in the traditional way:

In current times, in the process industries, there are several problems and issues related to learning in the traditional way. By traditional way, we mean attending a live class, or training workshop, or information seminar, where the expert teacher or instructor teaches a group of learners on the subject matter.

The problems and issues include the following

• Not all employees can be spared for such training at the same time. The employee has to travel away from the place of work for a full 2-3 days at the minimum.

• Costs of travel and stay, if learners are coming from different locations to study. These costs can be pretty significant if air travel is involved.

• Different employees may have different levels of grasping, hence even after undergoing the same course, each learner’s level of understanding will be different.

• Pressure on Instructor to complete the course in shortest possible time.

• No scope for learners to revise the course concepts or re-take the course again and again, unless the company has a policy of regular refresher training. However, typically this is done only for essential training like mandatory safety training, fire-fighting, etc.

• Learning is a continuous process but instructor led training makes it a one shot event.

Let us see now how this situation can be improved.

The case for e-learning & m-learning:

As can be seen from above, process technology has come a long way but people are still caught up in 18th century techniques to teach 21st century technology. How is this so? The traditional classroom based training, is a product of the industrial revolution of the 18th century. At that time, this kind of teaching was the state of the art. Now with the advent of the internet, broadband connections & excellent software, is teaching using these old methods OK?

Certainly not! 21st century training has to be imparted to learners in 21st century fashion! Not in an obsolete way.

Hence all over the world businesses, big or small, local or global are turning to e-learning & m-learning as a means of imparting effective learning.

What does one mean by e-learning & m-learning.? E-learning can be defined as using computer technology, internet, multimedia & other technology to impart learning. M-learning is similar to e-learning except that, it happens not with a computer or laptop, but with a mobile phone.

Advantages of e-learning & m-learning:

The advantages of e-learning are:

• No need to spare all employees at the same time. The employee can choose time and place of learning.

• It will be self paced and if need be can be run again and again till employee is confidently well versed in the subject.

• No time constraints. Learning can be in bite sized chunks or all at once-totally as per the learner’s need-rather than the instructor’s comfort.

• Large number of courses can be managed through suitable LMS (Learning Management Systems) by a very small number of training administrators. The LMS can also document and log number of courses taken, test scores, time taken, etc for each learner which can provide intelligent data for developing your employee’s skills.

• It results in measurable learning. Due to score tracking, progress tracking and time tracking, the performance of each employee undergoing the training becomes measurable. In earlier days with traditional training, this was typically not done.

• Flexible course deployment---either through stand alone CD ROMs, Internet or a company wide Intranet. Hence no travel and stay expenses, which can be a substantial cost today.

Geography is history. Learning can be anywhere, anytime at your convenience.

An e-learning solution can be either off the shelf courses, or a custom designed course.

Off the shelf courses:

You can find several excellently designed off-the-shelf courses in several topic areas .For process industries, these include e-learning courses on Hazardous Area Instrumentation, RFID technology and Gas Monitors from Abhisam Software. To know more about these please visit http://www.abhisam.com

Custom Designed courses:

A custom designed course has to be designed keeping in mind the audience, goals of the course, time allotted to the course and testing requirements. You should ensure that a custom designed course provider can provide to you all these resources at competitive costs. Often custom designed courses tend to be very very expensive. For most standard topics you can safely assume that the standard off the shelf e-learning course is good enough.

Use the right teaching tools in the course:

Your off the shelf course provider should have produced the course not merely as a bunch of pages stuck together electronically but an integrated course consisting of text, flash based animations, graphics, photos, videos, exercises & simulations. It should also have a glossary & an assessment test. For example e-learning courses made by Abhisam Software have all of these features. Also the arrangement of the course material should have a logical progression, starting from basic concepts going to more advanced topics.

Going beyond traditional courses-Electronic Learning Manuals ( Not just e-books):

One should think of going beyond just traditional courses and putting all of your company’s user manuals, procedures, maintenance manuals and installation guides into e-learning modules. This is especially useful for companies who sell capital equipment and need to train their customers thoroughly. Instead of supplying a staid user manual (with perhaps a three day course thrown in for good measure) it would be a better option to convert all this knowledge into an e- learning module which can then be used teach everybody who needs to know it anytime. Say, your company makes an oil fired heater and needs to train the customers in its operation. What better way to train than do it through an e-learning course which through the right combination of text matter, graphics, animation and sound can create quite a lasting impact. This kind of audio-visual training has better retention amongst plant operators than going though a dull manual.

( Please note that we are not talking here of e-books or e-manuals, which are nothing but soft copies of the same dull manuals! )

These kind of modules can be hosted on the company’s website and used to impart very effective training to even faraway customers in a cost effective manner. Does your e-learning service provider have this kind of service?

Deployment:

Ideally courses which are organization-specific should be able to be deployed immediately in a cost effective manner.

The easiest way to do this is to buy the course from a service provider who does not ask you to install any specialized or expensive software. You should be able to take the course directly by using your PC or laptop & logging in to the course provider’s site via a web browser like Internet Explorer. All of Abhisam Software’s online courses are hosted online by Abhisam Software & its business partners and are available to you instantly by just visiting the course pages. No special software is needed. Thus you can get trained on subjects like Hazardous Area Instrumentation, Gas Monitors or RFID almost immediately.

If you do have a Learning Management System (LMS for short) already installed in your company then your e-learning course provider must be able to give you courses that are compatible with your LMS. Most LMS these days conform to the SCORM or AICC standards and so the courses must also follow these standards. All of Abhisam Software’s e-learning courses are also available in SCORM or AICC compatible formats.

Conclusion:

e-learning is a technology whose time has arrived and companies, especially those in the Process Industries now have compelling reasons to adopt it, which was not the case a few years back.

If you are not considering e-learning for your organization, then you are losing an excellent opportunity to sharpen skills, increase productivity and thus increase the general skill level of your organization, at a fraction of the cost of traditional learning.

If you are unsure about how e-learning can help your company or organization, don’t hesitate. Contact us now and get a free no obligation consultation.