Sellers and Buyers - Protect Yourselves From Fakes

Even the best of us get duped.... Buyers and Sellers alike.

With the growth of the internet, fake merchandise has increased tenfold; especially fake designer goods. Fake no longer means poor quality.

Actually in some cases, the fakes look the EXACT same as their authentic counterparts.

Marketplaces such as Overstock and eBay have been cluttered with fakes for the last couple of years. They are taking further action to to put a stop to the peddling of this merchandise that has been floating around on their sites for years. More and more sellers are being suspended and given the "boot" from these as well as other sites. Some sellers have been removed unfairly, and some finally received what they deserved.

If you are serious about your internet dealings, there are 10 rules you should always apply before purchasing designer merchandise online. These rules are extremely simple and easy to remember. They can save your business as well as save you from the heartache of a cheesy fake.

IDENTIFY FAKE DESIGNER BAGS

1. USE COMMON SENSE!!! If it is too good to be true, then it normally is. For example LV items are NEVER offered at wholesale prices! Unless the LV bag is secondhand, gently used, or someone's dective bag, you should beware. If some one is selling a BRAND NEW LV at a super low price, chances are it is fake. There are exceptions, but as a rule LV does not resell surplus bags.

2. If you are a seller, KNOW YOUR BRANDS!!! Research it before you sell it. No one wants to hear the excuse, " I did not know". Researching your items, will save you alot of problems. For example, Chanel sunglasses are extremely difficult to purchase in the excess market. Normally, 90% of these sunglasses are fakes. Brands such a Gucci, Dior, Armani, Versace, etc, are alot easier to find in the excess market (this does not mean that these other brands have not been counterfeited).

3. QUALITY CONTROL!!! Sometimes, there are just blatantly, cheap knockoffs that can be spotted a mile away. On the contrary, there are some knockoffs that look so good that you will never be able to tell the difference. With that known, learn what to look for. The best thing to do if you are not completely comfortable, is to simply purchase one from the store. Pay attention to the stitching, all logos, special markings etc. Count the stitching, pay attention to the logos and their font and positioning. This is important because these things should be the same. Measure the bag. Also as crazy as it may sound..... smell the bag. If you happen to purchase a bag from some one that has a return policy, take it to a Sales associate at the local department store (don't tell them where you got it, eBay and other competing sites is a turn off for sales associates) and ask them if it is authentic ( tell them it was a gift or you purchased it online).

4. The Price. Common Sense should tell you that you don't get something for nothing. The initial price of the merchandise should tell you alot about the item. For example, if you find a brand new bag that retails for $999 selling for $200, a big red flag should go up. Unless the item is outdated and is really used then... this item is fake. Be familiar with the normal resale price of your items.

5. Research the Seller. One rule of business is you should know or get to know who you are buying from. The best way is to visit their Internet site or view their sales history. Check their feedback. Google them. Ask them questions. If their merchandise is what they say it is, they should have nothing to hide.

6. Paperwork. I am referring to Receipts, Sanitized Invoices, etc. Many sellers of counterfeit merchandise are beginning to purchase these items to accompany their bags. Trust me there are places where these can be purchased. Some of them are from the actual stores! The real proof of authenticity should provide a chain of title. Meaning there is a trail of invoices from the original trademark owner or authorized reseller. These invoices should specify exactly what was purchased with the style number and brand name or trademark written fully on it.

7. U.S. Custom and Import Laws. It is completely within your rights to import authentic merchandise from non-US domiciled brands and re-sell them, within certain limitations. It is not permissible to import US domiciled brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren in the US with out the permission of the respective brands. Research these laws.

8. Purchase samples. Purchasing small lots will be helpful to you as a seller if you are trying out a new supplier. Do not let the pressure you into purchasing a large lot. You may be disappointed.

9. READ. Please make sure that you fully read the listing of what you are buying. So many listings and websites I have come across fail to mention the authenticity of their merchandise. Some of their merchandise looks so much like the authentic ones that you don't notice that they are counterfeit. Reading is very important. If the merchandise does not mention AUTHENTIC and says TOP QUALITY, it is fake. If it says AAA or 7 STAR or MIRROR QUALITY, there are no was around the fact it is a phony FAKE. Wording is extremely important.

10. Use credit cards as forms of payment. Credit cards are safer for buyers because they protect you. These payments are much better than wire transfers. Until you get to know your supplier or seller, you should always use a safe form of payment. There's always a paper trail with credit cards which enables you to keep records and file chargebacks if need be.

About Author

Diane Drew has successfully helped 1,000's of people avoid purchasing fakes, and getting ripped of online. In 2006, she took the reigns of an upstart Luxury Auction site dedicated to making it safe to purchase Authentic Designer Merchandise, Luxury Items, and Premium Electronics online without fearing what you would receive. http://www.reddmark.com
http://www.reddmark.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-diane-drew-3044.html

Ecommerce Website Development: Get the Best Ecommerce Tools To Achieve Your Business Goals Online

Author: Anne Catherine

Today, if you want to do excel in business, you must have your online presence and here an ecommerce website becomes your mirror to cyber world.
Internet and today’s rapidly changing scenario have brought together an easy, effective yet strategically operated world of ecommerce. Today, if you want to do excel in business, you must have your online presence and here an ecommerce website becomes your mirror to cyber world. With your own web page, your products can have access to thousands of potential customers across the world. To have a powerful, attractive and effective ecommerce website you need four essential components, which carry utmost importance before starting with a website development. Let’s get into an introduction of these vital components and see how vigilant you need to be while choosing them.

Web Site Design for ecommerce purpose

Your site will have just few seconds to let your customers retain or hit the back or cross button. Here I simply mean to say; your site should have not only an attractive but easy user interface. It should be a practical, handy and welcoming website. Just have a look at the following points that can help you.

•Attractive Layout
•Clear and Comprehensible Presentation
•Easy Navigation System
•Working Hyperlinks

Over all, your website should be easy to explore and revealing enough to keep your visitors stick to it retaining their interest.

Professional and Reliable Ecommerce Web Hosting

For the convenience of visitors and yourself, you must have a reliable and professional website hosting that guarantees 100% availability of your website leaving no space for server downs. You need to pay here to have your customers with you. Remember, a little saving and a down server will let your customers’ interest down when they would find it unavailable because of unplanned maintenance or unreliable web hosting. Additionally, keep your own domain name and not any sub-domain from another site. $10 can get you a new domain name then why to hold back on this minor issue.

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software

Shopping cart software is an important component of your website that needs to be carefully designed with proper sophistication as it needs to process your customers’ purchase and payments. These tips will help you getting a good ecommerce shopping cart software

•Reliable and Handy ecommerce Software
•Customizable user interface
•Asking minimum desired details to buy your products
•Provides trouble-free retrieval of data from your customers while purchasing
•Novel and useful integrated tools and features for users’ and admins’ convenience

Secure Merchant Account

A secure merchant account is the component that requires the services of a trustworthy ecommerce merchant account provider as it processes transfer of customers’ money into your own bank account. The most preferred and popular online account provider is Paypal but your bank can also provide you an online merchant account if required. The ecommerce merchant account acts as an indispensable interface between your shopping cart and your bank account. It handles all credit and debit card processing, so it definitely requires an authentic financial institution which your customers can rely upon.

Thus, before getting started with an ecommerce website development, you must perform a thorough analysis of service providers who can provide you the best ecommerce solutions. Perform a careful market analysis and opt for the secure merchant account providers and dedicated web Design Company to get a complete and fully functional ecommerce website that will take your business to new heights.

About Author

The author is an expert on internet business and online shopping related issues. To have a peek into her business and technology oriented articles visit the website http://www.infysolutions.com

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com

U.S. Consumer, Fear Thyself

Perception can often become reality. On Friday, a batch of data showed that although the U.S. economy may be mediocre, American consumer sentiment is worse.

"The sentiment is probably worse than the actual data," said Peter Dunay, the chief investment strategist at Meridian Partners. Yet although much of the information was dim, there were also a few glimmers of hope peaking through the clouds.

The clouds, however, were dark. The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers index of consumer sentiment dropped to 69.6, drastically below analysts' median forecast for a preliminary reading of 76.3 -- from 78.4 at the end of January. The February reading was the lowest since February 1992.

"The sentiment index has only been this low during the recessions of the mid 1970s, the early 1980s and the early 1990s," said survey director Richard Curtin.

Consumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of American economic activity, so shoppers who fear for their livelihood can bring about a recession by curtailing their purchases.

Meanwhile, the New York Federal Reserve Bank's manufacturing survey tumbled into negative territory in February -- reaching its lowest level in almost four years. Even though the survey of manufacturing executives only covers New York State, the data was so weak that it caused the entire stock market to take a turn for the worse.

Global Insight economist Brian Bethune had a pessimistic view of the U.S. economy. He said real consumer spending is expected to "barely creep forward" in the first quarter of 2008. With consumer sentiment and the Empire survey showing that the risk to the economy are growing rapidly, "Bernanke's 'sluggish growth' outlook for early 2008 clearly is not in the cards, and the Fed needs to lower rates again as soon as possible," said Bethune. He was referring to testimony to Congress on Thursday in which Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the United States seemed able to skirt an outright recession. (See "Outlook Hazy")

On the other hand, the Federal Reserve Board released data showing that overall U.S. industrial output, which includes production at factories, mines, and utilities, increased 0.1% in January for a second consecutive month. The data was in line with economists’ forecasts. Output in the manufacturing sector was unchanged in January after a 0.2% gain in December. The output of mines decreased 1.8% but was offset by a 2.2% climb in the utilities.

There was other good news this week. The Commerce Department released trade balance numbers for December on Thursday showing that exports rose by 1.5%, indicating that the global picture is still strong. The data also showed that imports declined 1.1%, suggesting Americans are curtailing their purchases as they brace for tough times.

The Labor Department reported that the cost of goods imported into the country jumped 1.7% in January, driven by soaring energy costs. This double whammy of rising inflation and slowing growth or “stagflation” sent the U.S. stock market reeling.

The survey consists of telephone interviews of 500 respondents, who are asked about their attitudes toward, and expectations of, the U.S. economy.

For investors, the question is whether a world without American consumers can have a vibrant economy. If the export data and strong commodity demand is any indication, then so far it looks like it can. But the markets did not bear that out. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond fell to 3.77% from 3.82% late on Thursday as stock prices fell. Taken together, the movements indicate investors were deserting the stock market in favor of bonds, a sign that they are worried about slow economic growth. (See "Bad News Before Break")

Some of the stock market's weakness could be attributed to February’s Empire State Manufacturing index. The index fell nearly 21 points to a negative 11.72 from a positive 9.03 in January. That was the lowest level for the index since it hit negative 16.47 in April 2003, though there was also a one-month negative reading in May 2005. A figure above zero indicates the state's manufacturing sector is growing.

Wall Street economists expected the New York Federal Reserve Bank's Empire State index to fall to 5.75 in February, down from 9.03 the previous month, according to Thomson/IFR.

New orders for February fell for the fourth straight month, down more than 11 points to negative 11.88. Shipments also had a sharp decline of 21 points, to negative 4.86.

The New York Fed's survey is the first of several regional reports that the markets watch for early indications of economic activity in February. The Philadelphia Fed is scheduled to release its index Feb. 21, while a Chicago purchasing manager's index is scheduled for Feb. 29.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that the cost of goods imported into the country jumped 1.7% in January, driven by soaring energy costs. Combined with the signs of a weakening economy, that led to fears of stagflation in the financial markets.

Thomson Financial and Reuters contributed to this article.

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

Posted by randfish on Thu (8/31/06) at 01:53 AM Blogging


A considerable portion of my consulting time has recently revolved around the optmization of corporate blogs (or the addition of blogs to revamped sites). As usual, I find a pattern emerging in the strategies that need attention and the pitfalls that must be avoided. So, rather than charging $400 an hour to give advice on the subject, I thought it would be valuable to share many of the most common pieces of advice here on the blog (business part of Rand fights with open source Rand, but loses, as usual).
Choose the Right Blog Software (or Custom Build)
The right blog CMS makes a big difference. If you want to set yourself apart, I recommend creating a custom blog solution - one that can be completely customized to your users. In most cases, WordPress, Blogger, MovableType or Typepad will suffice, but building from scratch allows you to be very creative with functionality and formatting. The best CMS is something that's easy for the writer(s) to use and brings together the features that allow the blog to flourish. Think about how you want comments, archiving, sub-pages, categorization, multiple feeds and user accounts to operate in order to narrow down your choices. OpenSourceCMS is a very good tool to help you select a software if you go that route.
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Host Your Blog Directly on Your Domain
Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary site is one of the worst mistakes you can make. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and search rankings - by keeping the blog on a separate domain, you shoot yourself in the foot. From worst to best, your options are - Hosted (on a solution like Blogspot or Wordpress), on a unique domain (at least you can 301 it in the future), on a subdomain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a subfolder or page - this is the best solution).
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Write Title Tags with Two Audiences in Mind
First and foremost, you're writing a title tag for the people who will visit your site or have a subscription to your feed. Title tags that are short, snappy, on-topic and catchy are imperative. You also want to think about search engines when you title your posts, since the engines can help to drive traffic to your blog. A great way to do this is to write the post and the title first, then run a few searches at Overture, WordTracker & KeywordDiscovery to see if there is a phrasing or ordering that can better help you to target "searched for" terms.
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Participate at Related Forums & Blogs
Whatever industry or niche you're in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that's already active. Depending on the specificity of your focus, you may need to think one or two levels broader than your own content to find a large community, but with the size of the participatory web today, even the highly specialized content areas receive attention. A great way to find out who these people are is to use Technorati to conduct searches, then sort by number of links (authority). Del.icio.us tags are also very useful in this process, as are straight searches at the engines (Ask.com's blog search in particular is of very good quality).
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Tag Your Content
Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts. I actually recommend having the tags right on your page, pointing to the Technorati searches that you're targeting. There are other good places to ping - del.icio.us and Flickr being the two most obvious (the only other one is Blogmarks, which is much smaller). Tagging content can also be valuable to help give you a "bump" towards getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon (which requires that you download the toolbar, but trust me - it's worth it). You DO NOT want to submit every post to these sites, but that one out of twenty (see tactic #18) is worth your while.
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Launch Without Comments (and Add Them Later)
There's something sad about a blog with 0 comments on every post. It feels dead, empty and unpopular. Luckily, there's an easy solution - don't offer the ability to post comments on the blog and no one will know that you only get 20 uniques a day. Once you're upwards of 100 RSS subscribers and/or 750 unique visitors per day, you can open up the comments and see light activity. Comments are often how tech-savvy new visitors judge the popularity of a site (and thus, its worth), so play to your strengths and keep your obscurity private.
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Don't Jump on the Bandwagon
Some memes are worthy of being talked about by every blogger in the space, but most aren't. Just because there's huge news in your industry or niche DOES NOT mean you need to be covering it, or even mentioning it (though it can be valuable to link to it as an aside, just to integrate a shared experience into your unique content). Many of the best blogs online DO talk about the big trends - this is because they're already popular, established and are counted on to be a source of news for the community. If you're launching a new blog, you need to show people in your space that you can offer something unique, different and valuable - not just the same story from your point of view. This is less important in spaces where there are very few bloggers and little online coverage and much more in spaces that are overwhelmed with blogs (like search, or anything else tech-related).
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Link Intelligently
When you link out in your blog posts, use convention where applicable and creativity when warranted, but be aware of how the links you serve are part of the content you provide. Not every issue you discuss or site you mention needs a link, but there's a fine line between overlinking and underlinking. The best advice I can give is to think of the post from the standpoint of a relatively uninformed reader. If you mention Wikipedia, everyone is familar and no link is required. If you mention a specific page at Wikipedia, a link is necessary and important. Also, be aware that quoting other bloggers or online sources (or even discussing their ideas) without linking to them is considered bad etitquette and can earn you scorn that could cost you links from those sources in the future. It's almost always better to be over-generous with links than under-generous. And link condoms? Only use them when you're linking to something you find truly distasteful or have serious apprehension about.
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Invite Guest Bloggers
Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog. You not only flatter the person by acknowedging their celebrity, you nearly guarantee yourself a link or at least an association with a brand that can earn you readers. Just be sure that you really are getting a quality post from someone that's as close to universally popular and admired as possible (unless you want to start playing the drama linkbait game, which I personally abhor). If you're already somewhat popular, it can often be valuable to look outside your space and bring in guest authors who have a very unique angle or subject matter to help spice up your focus. One note about guest bloggers - make sure they agree to have their work edited by you before it's posted. A disagreement on this subject after the fact can have negative ramifications.
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Eschew Advertising (Until You're Popular)
I hate AdSense on blogs. Usually, I ignore it, but I also cast a sharp eye towards the quality of the posts and professionalism of the content when I see AdSense. That's not to say that contextual advertising can't work well in some blogs, but it needs to be well integrated into the design and layout to help defer criticism. Don't get me wrong - it's unfair to judge a blog by its cover (or, in this case, its ads), but spend a lot of time surfing blogs and you'll have the same impression - low quality blogs run AdSense and many high quality ones don't. I always recommend that whether personal or professional, you wait until your blog has achieved a level of success before you start advertising. Ads, whether they're sponsorships, banners, contextual or other, tend to have a direct, negative impact on the number of readers who subscribe, add to favorites and link - you definitely don't want that limitation while you're still trying to get established.
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Go Beyond Text in Your Posts
Blogs that contain nothing but line after line of text are more difficult to read and less consistently interesting than those that offer images, interactive elements, the occassional multimedia content and some clever charts & graphs. Even if you're having a tough time with non-text content, think about how you can format the text using blockquotes, indentation, bulllet points, etc. to create a more visually appealing and digestable block of content.
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Cover Topics that Need Attention
In every niche, there are certain topics and questions that are frequently asked or pondered, but rarely have definitive answers. While this recommendation applies to nearly every content-based site, it's particularly easy to leverage with a blog. If everyone in the online Nascar forums is wondering about the components and cost of an average Nascar vehicle - give it to them. If the online stock trading industry is rife with questions about the best performing stocks after a terrorist threat, your path is clear. Spend the time and effort to research, document and deliver and you're virtually guaranteed link-worthy content that will attract new visitors and subscribers.
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Pay Attention to Your Analytics
Visitor tracking software can tell you which posts your audience likes best, which ones don't get viewed and how the search engines are delivering traffic. Use these clues to react and improve your strategies. Feedburner is great for RSS and I'm a personal fan of Indextools. Consider adding action tracking to your blog, so you can see what sources of traffic are bringing the best quality visitors (in terms of time spent on the site, # of page views, etc). I particularly like having the "register" link tagged for analytics so I can see what percentage of visitors from each source is interested enough to want to leave a comment or create an account.
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Use a Human Voice
Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it's most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty. Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you'll be in a good position to succeed. It's also critical that you maintain a level of humility in your blogging and stick to your roots. When users start to feel that a blog is taking itself too seriously or losing the characteristics that made it unique, they start to seek new places for content. We've certainly made mistakes (even recently) that have cost us some fans - be cautious to control not only what you say, but how you say it. Lastly - if there's a hot button issue that has you posting emotionally, temper it by letting the post sit in draft mode for an hour or two, re-reading it and considering any revisions. With the advent of feeds, once you publish, there's no going back.
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Archive Effectively
The best archives are carefully organized into subjects and date ranges. For search traffic (particularly long tail terms), it can be best to offer the full content of every post in a category on the archive pages, but from a usability standpoint, just linking to each post is far better (possibly with a very short snippet). Balance these two issues and make the decision based on your goals. A last note on archiving - pagination in blogging can be harmful to search traffic, rather than beneficial (as you provide constantly changing, duplicate content pages). Pagination is great for users who scroll to the bottom and want to see more, though, so consider putting a "noindex" in the meta tag or in the robots.txt file to keep spiders where they belong - in the well-organized archive system.
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Implement Smart URLs
The best URL structure for blogs is, in my opinion, as short as possible while still containing enough information to make an educated guess about the content you'll find on the page. I don't like the 10 hyphen, lengthy blog titles that are the byproduct of many CMS plugins, but they are certainly better than any dynamic parameters in the URL. Yes - I know I'm not walking the talk here, and hopefully it's something we can fix in the near future. To those who say that one dynamic parameter in the URL doesn't hurt, I'd take issue - just re-writing a ?ID=450 to /450 has improved search traffic considerably on several blogs we've worked with.
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Reveal as Much as Possible
The blogosphere is in love with the idea of an open source world on the web. Sharing vast stores of what might ordinarily be considered private information is the rule, rather than the exception. If you can offer content that's usually private - trade secrets, pricing, contract issues, and even the occassional harmless rumor, your blog can benefit. Make a decision about what's off-limits and how far you can go and then push right up to that limit in order to see the best possible effects. Your community will reward you with links and traffic.
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Only One Post in Twenty Can Be Linkbait
Not every post is worthy of making it to the top of Digg, Del.icio.us/popular or even a mention at some other blogs in your space. Trying to over-market every post you write will result in pushback and ultimately lead to negative opinions about your efforts. The less popular your blog is, the harder it will be to build excitement around a post, but the process of linkbait has always been trial and error - build, test, refine and re-build. Keep creating great ideas and bolstering them with lots of solid, everyday content and you'll eventually be big enough to where one out of every 20-40 posts really does become linkbait.
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Make Effective Use of High Traffic Days
If you do have linkbait, whether by design or by accident, make sure to capitalize. When you hit the front page of Digg, Reddit, Boing Boing, or, on a smaller scale, attract a couple hundred visitors from a bigger blog or site in your space, you need to put your best foot forward. Make sure to follow up on a high traffic time period with 2-3 high quality posts that show off your skills as a writer, your depth of understanding and let visitors know that this is content they should be sticking around to see more of. Nothing kills the potential linkbait "bump" faster than a blog whose content doesn't update for 48 hours after they've received a huge influx of visitors.
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Create Expectations and Fulfill Them
When you're writing for your audience, your content focus, post timing and areas of interest will all become associated with your personal style. If you vary widely from that style, you risk alienating folks who've come to know you and rely on you for specific data. Thus, if you build a blog around the idea of being an analytical expert in your field, don't ignore the latest release of industry figures only to chat about an emotional issue - deliver what your readers expect of you and crunch the numbers. This applies equally well to post frequency - if your blog regularly churns out 2 posts a day, having two weeks with only 4 posts is going to have an adverse impact on traffic. That's not to say you can't take a vacation, but you need to schedule it wisely and be prepared to lose RSS subscribers and regulars. It's not fair, but it's the truth. We lose visitors every time I attend an SES conference and drop to one post every two days (note - guest bloggers and time-release posts can help here, too).
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Build a Brand
Possibly one of the most important aspects of all in blogging is brand-building. As Zefrank noted, to be a great brand, you need to be a brand that people want to associate themselves with and a brand that people feel they derive value from being a member. Exclusivity, insider jokes, emails with regulars, the occassional cat post and references to your previous experiences can be offputting for new readers, but they're solid gold for keeping your loyal base feeling good about their brand experience with you. Be careful to stick to your brand - once you have a definition that people like and are comfortable with, it's very hard to break that mold without severe repercussions. If you're building a new blog, or building a low-traffic one, I highly recommend writing down the goals of your brand and the attributes of its identity to help remind you as you write.

Best of luck to all you bloggers out there. It's an increasingly crowded field to play in, but these strategies should help to give you an edge over the competition. As always, if you've got additions or disagreements, I'd love to hear them.

p.s. Note to self - starting long blog entries at 11:30pm is not conducive to a good night's sleep. At least Angela got kicked off Project Runway tonight.

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

Posted by randfish on Thu (8/31/06) at 01:53 AM Blogging


A considerable portion of my consulting time has recently revolved around the optmization of corporate blogs (or the addition of blogs to revamped sites). As usual, I find a pattern emerging in the strategies that need attention and the pitfalls that must be avoided. So, rather than charging $400 an hour to give advice on the subject, I thought it would be valuable to share many of the most common pieces of advice here on the blog (business part of Rand fights with open source Rand, but loses, as usual).
Choose the Right Blog Software (or Custom Build)
The right blog CMS makes a big difference. If you want to set yourself apart, I recommend creating a custom blog solution - one that can be completely customized to your users. In most cases, WordPress, Blogger, MovableType or Typepad will suffice, but building from scratch allows you to be very creative with functionality and formatting. The best CMS is something that's easy for the writer(s) to use and brings together the features that allow the blog to flourish. Think about how you want comments, archiving, sub-pages, categorization, multiple feeds and user accounts to operate in order to narrow down your choices. OpenSourceCMS is a very good tool to help you select a software if you go that route.
-
Host Your Blog Directly on Your Domain
Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary site is one of the worst mistakes you can make. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and search rankings - by keeping the blog on a separate domain, you shoot yourself in the foot. From worst to best, your options are - Hosted (on a solution like Blogspot or Wordpress), on a unique domain (at least you can 301 it in the future), on a subdomain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a subfolder or page - this is the best solution).
-
Write Title Tags with Two Audiences in Mind
First and foremost, you're writing a title tag for the people who will visit your site or have a subscription to your feed. Title tags that are short, snappy, on-topic and catchy are imperative. You also want to think about search engines when you title your posts, since the engines can help to drive traffic to your blog. A great way to do this is to write the post and the title first, then run a few searches at Overture, WordTracker & KeywordDiscovery to see if there is a phrasing or ordering that can better help you to target "searched for" terms.
-
Participate at Related Forums & Blogs
Whatever industry or niche you're in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that's already active. Depending on the specificity of your focus, you may need to think one or two levels broader than your own content to find a large community, but with the size of the participatory web today, even the highly specialized content areas receive attention. A great way to find out who these people are is to use Technorati to conduct searches, then sort by number of links (authority). Del.icio.us tags are also very useful in this process, as are straight searches at the engines (Ask.com's blog search in particular is of very good quality).
-
Tag Your Content
Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts. I actually recommend having the tags right on your page, pointing to the Technorati searches that you're targeting. There are other good places to ping - del.icio.us and Flickr being the two most obvious (the only other one is Blogmarks, which is much smaller). Tagging content can also be valuable to help give you a "bump" towards getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon (which requires that you download the toolbar, but trust me - it's worth it). You DO NOT want to submit every post to these sites, but that one out of twenty (see tactic #18) is worth your while.
-
Launch Without Comments (and Add Them Later)
There's something sad about a blog with 0 comments on every post. It feels dead, empty and unpopular. Luckily, there's an easy solution - don't offer the ability to post comments on the blog and no one will know that you only get 20 uniques a day. Once you're upwards of 100 RSS subscribers and/or 750 unique visitors per day, you can open up the comments and see light activity. Comments are often how tech-savvy new visitors judge the popularity of a site (and thus, its worth), so play to your strengths and keep your obscurity private.
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Don't Jump on the Bandwagon
Some memes are worthy of being talked about by every blogger in the space, but most aren't. Just because there's huge news in your industry or niche DOES NOT mean you need to be covering it, or even mentioning it (though it can be valuable to link to it as an aside, just to integrate a shared experience into your unique content). Many of the best blogs online DO talk about the big trends - this is because they're already popular, established and are counted on to be a source of news for the community. If you're launching a new blog, you need to show people in your space that you can offer something unique, different and valuable - not just the same story from your point of view. This is less important in spaces where there are very few bloggers and little online coverage and much more in spaces that are overwhelmed with blogs (like search, or anything else tech-related).
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Link Intelligently
When you link out in your blog posts, use convention where applicable and creativity when warranted, but be aware of how the links you serve are part of the content you provide. Not every issue you discuss or site you mention needs a link, but there's a fine line between overlinking and underlinking. The best advice I can give is to think of the post from the standpoint of a relatively uninformed reader. If you mention Wikipedia, everyone is familar and no link is required. If you mention a specific page at Wikipedia, a link is necessary and important. Also, be aware that quoting other bloggers or online sources (or even discussing their ideas) without linking to them is considered bad etitquette and can earn you scorn that could cost you links from those sources in the future. It's almost always better to be over-generous with links than under-generous. And link condoms? Only use them when you're linking to something you find truly distasteful or have serious apprehension about.
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Invite Guest Bloggers
Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog. You not only flatter the person by acknowedging their celebrity, you nearly guarantee yourself a link or at least an association with a brand that can earn you readers. Just be sure that you really are getting a quality post from someone that's as close to universally popular and admired as possible (unless you want to start playing the drama linkbait game, which I personally abhor). If you're already somewhat popular, it can often be valuable to look outside your space and bring in guest authors who have a very unique angle or subject matter to help spice up your focus. One note about guest bloggers - make sure they agree to have their work edited by you before it's posted. A disagreement on this subject after the fact can have negative ramifications.
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Eschew Advertising (Until You're Popular)
I hate AdSense on blogs. Usually, I ignore it, but I also cast a sharp eye towards the quality of the posts and professionalism of the content when I see AdSense. That's not to say that contextual advertising can't work well in some blogs, but it needs to be well integrated into the design and layout to help defer criticism. Don't get me wrong - it's unfair to judge a blog by its cover (or, in this case, its ads), but spend a lot of time surfing blogs and you'll have the same impression - low quality blogs run AdSense and many high quality ones don't. I always recommend that whether personal or professional, you wait until your blog has achieved a level of success before you start advertising. Ads, whether they're sponsorships, banners, contextual or other, tend to have a direct, negative impact on the number of readers who subscribe, add to favorites and link - you definitely don't want that limitation while you're still trying to get established.
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Go Beyond Text in Your Posts
Blogs that contain nothing but line after line of text are more difficult to read and less consistently interesting than those that offer images, interactive elements, the occassional multimedia content and some clever charts & graphs. Even if you're having a tough time with non-text content, think about how you can format the text using blockquotes, indentation, bulllet points, etc. to create a more visually appealing and digestable block of content.
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Cover Topics that Need Attention
In every niche, there are certain topics and questions that are frequently asked or pondered, but rarely have definitive answers. While this recommendation applies to nearly every content-based site, it's particularly easy to leverage with a blog. If everyone in the online Nascar forums is wondering about the components and cost of an average Nascar vehicle - give it to them. If the online stock trading industry is rife with questions about the best performing stocks after a terrorist threat, your path is clear. Spend the time and effort to research, document and deliver and you're virtually guaranteed link-worthy content that will attract new visitors and subscribers.
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Pay Attention to Your Analytics
Visitor tracking software can tell you which posts your audience likes best, which ones don't get viewed and how the search engines are delivering traffic. Use these clues to react and improve your strategies. Feedburner is great for RSS and I'm a personal fan of Indextools. Consider adding action tracking to your blog, so you can see what sources of traffic are bringing the best quality visitors (in terms of time spent on the site, # of page views, etc). I particularly like having the "register" link tagged for analytics so I can see what percentage of visitors from each source is interested enough to want to leave a comment or create an account.
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Use a Human Voice
Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it's most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty. Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you'll be in a good position to succeed. It's also critical that you maintain a level of humility in your blogging and stick to your roots. When users start to feel that a blog is taking itself too seriously or losing the characteristics that made it unique, they start to seek new places for content. We've certainly made mistakes (even recently) that have cost us some fans - be cautious to control not only what you say, but how you say it. Lastly - if there's a hot button issue that has you posting emotionally, temper it by letting the post sit in draft mode for an hour or two, re-reading it and considering any revisions. With the advent of feeds, once you publish, there's no going back.
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Archive Effectively
The best archives are carefully organized into subjects and date ranges. For search traffic (particularly long tail terms), it can be best to offer the full content of every post in a category on the archive pages, but from a usability standpoint, just linking to each post is far better (possibly with a very short snippet). Balance these two issues and make the decision based on your goals. A last note on archiving - pagination in blogging can be harmful to search traffic, rather than beneficial (as you provide constantly changing, duplicate content pages). Pagination is great for users who scroll to the bottom and want to see more, though, so consider putting a "noindex" in the meta tag or in the robots.txt file to keep spiders where they belong - in the well-organized archive system.
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Implement Smart URLs
The best URL structure for blogs is, in my opinion, as short as possible while still containing enough information to make an educated guess about the content you'll find on the page. I don't like the 10 hyphen, lengthy blog titles that are the byproduct of many CMS plugins, but they are certainly better than any dynamic parameters in the URL. Yes - I know I'm not walking the talk here, and hopefully it's something we can fix in the near future. To those who say that one dynamic parameter in the URL doesn't hurt, I'd take issue - just re-writing a ?ID=450 to /450 has improved search traffic considerably on several blogs we've worked with.
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Reveal as Much as Possible
The blogosphere is in love with the idea of an open source world on the web. Sharing vast stores of what might ordinarily be considered private information is the rule, rather than the exception. If you can offer content that's usually private - trade secrets, pricing, contract issues, and even the occassional harmless rumor, your blog can benefit. Make a decision about what's off-limits and how far you can go and then push right up to that limit in order to see the best possible effects. Your community will reward you with links and traffic.
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Only One Post in Twenty Can Be Linkbait
Not every post is worthy of making it to the top of Digg, Del.icio.us/popular or even a mention at some other blogs in your space. Trying to over-market every post you write will result in pushback and ultimately lead to negative opinions about your efforts. The less popular your blog is, the harder it will be to build excitement around a post, but the process of linkbait has always been trial and error - build, test, refine and re-build. Keep creating great ideas and bolstering them with lots of solid, everyday content and you'll eventually be big enough to where one out of every 20-40 posts really does become linkbait.
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Make Effective Use of High Traffic Days
If you do have linkbait, whether by design or by accident, make sure to capitalize. When you hit the front page of Digg, Reddit, Boing Boing, or, on a smaller scale, attract a couple hundred visitors from a bigger blog or site in your space, you need to put your best foot forward. Make sure to follow up on a high traffic time period with 2-3 high quality posts that show off your skills as a writer, your depth of understanding and let visitors know that this is content they should be sticking around to see more of. Nothing kills the potential linkbait "bump" faster than a blog whose content doesn't update for 48 hours after they've received a huge influx of visitors.
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Create Expectations and Fulfill Them
When you're writing for your audience, your content focus, post timing and areas of interest will all become associated with your personal style. If you vary widely from that style, you risk alienating folks who've come to know you and rely on you for specific data. Thus, if you build a blog around the idea of being an analytical expert in your field, don't ignore the latest release of industry figures only to chat about an emotional issue - deliver what your readers expect of you and crunch the numbers. This applies equally well to post frequency - if your blog regularly churns out 2 posts a day, having two weeks with only 4 posts is going to have an adverse impact on traffic. That's not to say you can't take a vacation, but you need to schedule it wisely and be prepared to lose RSS subscribers and regulars. It's not fair, but it's the truth. We lose visitors every time I attend an SES conference and drop to one post every two days (note - guest bloggers and time-release posts can help here, too).
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Build a Brand
Possibly one of the most important aspects of all in blogging is brand-building. As Zefrank noted, to be a great brand, you need to be a brand that people want to associate themselves with and a brand that people feel they derive value from being a member. Exclusivity, insider jokes, emails with regulars, the occassional cat post and references to your previous experiences can be offputting for new readers, but they're solid gold for keeping your loyal base feeling good about their brand experience with you. Be careful to stick to your brand - once you have a definition that people like and are comfortable with, it's very hard to break that mold without severe repercussions. If you're building a new blog, or building a low-traffic one, I highly recommend writing down the goals of your brand and the attributes of its identity to help remind you as you write.

Best of luck to all you bloggers out there. It's an increasingly crowded field to play in, but these strategies should help to give you an edge over the competition. As always, if you've got additions or disagreements, I'd love to hear them.

p.s. Note to self - starting long blog entries at 11:30pm is not conducive to a good night's sleep. At least Angela got kicked off Project Runway tonight.

MainStreet Weird Intersection Of Money, Life

By David A. Utter - Wed, 02/13/2008 - 8:04am.

MainStreet more like TheStreet's back alley

Amy Winehouse and HIPAA? Nicholas Cage and umbrella insurance policies? Surprisingly enough, this isn't about a news-scraping blog stuffed with dodgy affiliate ads.

Jim "Mad Money" Cramer's brainchild, TheStreet.com, has a new neighbor. Called MainStreet, the website brings together odder pairings than anything ever seen in Hollywood.

The current top story features Britney Spears. Writer Laura Moran touched on the troubled popster's legal issues, after mentioning her preparation for a global tour. Then, believe it or not, the story gets even stranger.

Spears' travails lead into a discussion of financial planning and effective record keeping. A single comment on the story demonstrated the impact of the importance of retaining tax records: "I think Britney is still super-cute!"

Charles Schwab and Toyota might agree, as prominent sponsors of MainStreet. "Every article – whether it's a cautionary celebrity tale, a rags to riches story, politics, fashion or just plain fun – will have a secondary focus on improving your personal finances," says the site.

ReadWriteWeb writer Josh Catone thinks MainStreet crosses the line of good taste, especially in the case of a story about the late Heath Ledger.

"The whole site feels a bit too opportunistic to me, and rather than using news as a learning opportunity, MainStreet.com seems more like a site exploiting the tragically public lives of celebrities in a novel way," Catone said.

Google Apps Ready To Crash Microsoft

The Google Apps for Your Domain announcement noted how a premium version was in the works. Next month for a small monthly per-user fee, Google will unveil that. Some big names, corporations that would spend tons with Microsoft, could be ready to make the switch.

Is Google Crashing Windows?
It isn't surprising that the first two companies and the first university mentioned as likely customers for the advanced Google Apps for Your Domain service are Pixar, Disney, and Arizona State University. Once Google adds its Docs & Spreadsheets (and probably presentation software soon) to Apps, they will have an Office/Exchange alternative ready to go. Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board. Apple CEO Steve Jobs just sold Pixar to Disney, and he is Disney's biggest individual shareholder as a result. The two men know each other, and neither can be considered likely open-door guests at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. At Arizona State, Google has been very active on the campus. The search advertising company rents space on ASU's Tempe grounds, and already had a deal in place to switch email and IM services to Google Apps for Education at the end of January. A Business Week report on the potential for major Microsoft-to-Google converts cited a Pixar executive as being ready to make the switch to hosted applications: Greg Brandeau is itching to dump the decade-old, homegrown e-mail system he manages at Pixar Animation Studios Inc. And the senior vice-president for technology at the Walt Disney Co. (DIS ) unit is sure about one thing: The replacement won't be Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange and Outlook duo... "We're dying to use something like this," says Brandeau. He's "on the cusp" of signing a contract with Google. Microsoft has the edge in experience when it comes to working with business customers. But Google offers something Microsoft can't, and that's the relief from managing Microsoft systems to apply patches and service packs. Even though it's being characterized as Google versus Microsoft, that probably isn't the whole case. Google has a deal with Intuit that puts its AdWords service in QuickBooks, which runs on Windows. Lots of businesses manage their accounting and payroll with Intuit products, so Google should be quite happy to see them stay on Microsoft's OS. Exchange and Office, those can go. That's Google's real focus. Let's hope they have the support infrastructure to help customers, and not just a link to a Group or some help documents, when questions need to be answered about Google Apps.

Teach Your Little Ones with Google Apps

By Scott Horne - Thu, 01/03/2008 - 11:31am.

My seven year old son wants to program online games badly.

After playing Pokemon online he got the notion that he wanted to make something like that. He pestered me for days about setting him up so he could make cool games where his friends could checkout his games. I struggled for a few days trying to find a solution for him. He’s seven so there has to be some reward for the initial work he does to keep his interest. You can’t just throw a seven year old in the deep end and let him flounder.

What could I do to get a kid that age making web pages that were interesting quickly? I could set him up on my server but I didn’t want to do that just yet. The thought of installing Dreamweaver on his box teaching him how to use it didn’t seem like fun. Naturally after thinking about it, it came down to finding a service with good online editor. Google Page Creator of course popped into my head and the rest was history.We signed him up for Google Apps for families. It was very painless. I bought him his domain for $10 via Google Checkout and that was it. I had him signed in, added as an admin, and having him customize his domains start page in 30 minutes.

Then he started make pages asking me for help as needed. He uploaded a pic of his dog, added a protest about coal power, and shared his newest obsession, Turtle programing, in short order. He thought the results were “awesome!“.

It just makes a nerd dad proud.

I know soon he’ll outgrow the training wheels that Googles Page Creator is providing him. For now though this is just the thing. It gets him him started and opens the door to conversations about how it all works.

E-Commerce Vs Traditional business Strategy

Author: Dimension India

This is basically for e-commerce, so for traditional business like emails, newsletters, etc., might not apply but you can still be able to implement these ideas behind the new marketing strategy.
In the today's scenario the client is very fast and smart and when he come before the net for the searching of the services provider then if he not find you then he will go to some body else, yes this is a fact. So there is a big need that your business site come on the top. Basically all the corporate person those have their corporate website needs to come before the client because only a website can bring a client that is less costally but give you more revenue.

This is basically for e-commerce, so for traditional business like emails, newsletters, etc., might not apply but you can still be able to implement these ideas behind the new marketing strategy.

1: Give people a free subscription to your newsletters. Almost everyone is publishing a newsletter nowadays so it's important to give something extra with the free subscription. You could offer a free gift or advertising when people subscribe.

2:Offer a free online directory. The directory could be full of interesting ebooks, greeting, web sites etc. If people find your directory to be a valuable resource they will visit it over and over.

3:Give your visitors a free ebook. You could also include your own ad in the ebook and allow other people to give it away. If you don't want to take the time to write one, you could ask other writers permission to use their articles. I have written a few articles on this topic. Go to Google or Yahoo and search under my name and e-books. Otherwise, email me and I’ll send you my article.

4:Give visitors a free entry into your contest or sweepstakes. The prizes should be something of interest or value to your visitors. Offer more entry based upon no of items purchases or total dollars spent. Example: 1st entry with purchase, additional entries for each $50 spent. Also, most people who enter will continually revisit your web site to find out who won.

5:Offer free original content. It's important to give your visitors information they can't find anywhere else. If you're the only source, they'll visit your site. If you are selling beauty products, do your homework and find beauty or health tips and post them on your site.

6:Make your web site look professional. You want to have your own domain name, easy navigation, attractive graphics, etc. Again, target your competition. If they have a very basic site, take advantage of that and get a great looking site.

7:Survey your existing customers. Do this on at least an annual basis. It is VERY important to find out who your customer base is. By knowing who you are servicing, you can serve them better.

8:Test and improve your ad copy. There are many people who write an ad and never change it. Make sure you get the highest possible response rate. Ask people for their opinion.

About Author

MarketStar’s Team http://www.marketstar.com MarketStar is a sales and marketing outsourcing company providing flexible retail, channel and direct sales solutions for the world’s leading and emerging companies

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-dimension-india-3755.html

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What More Can We Learn About Book Promotion?

Author: Warren Whitlock

I wanted you to know how I doubled the number of people signing up for a new program from my friend and co-author Dan Kuschell. I've taken some basic marketing principles and applied the latest technologies to get fast and easy promotion.
I wanted you to know how I doubled the number of people signing up for a new program from my friend and co-author Dan Kuschell. I've taken some basic marketing principles and applied the latest technologies to get fast and easy promotion.

Would you like to learn about it? I can tell you.. but first, I want to let you know how you can use these same techniques for little or no out of pocket cost. You can do this. You can pay to make it work better..but try it first without spending money... just to make sure it
works.

Here's what we did. I talked Dan into a complimentary seminar for everyone on my mailing list. Dan sweetened the pot with over $400in bonus gifts. I put details of the promotion in my blog. I issued a press release announcing the training and got instant top ten search positions and over 101,000 internet news feeds.

I wrote about the promotion in my blog, and sent links to read more about it on my blog.

How much did it cost? Not much! Dan has been getting tremendous results for clients that engage him. The word of mouth is feeding his growth, and he was happy to share the information.

I did not have to buy anything to get the blog set up. The domain name http://DailyWarren.com is registered to me for $10 per year... and hosted for next to nothing on my server. (this part is optional)

So the only charge is for the press release. We wanted it out fast, and wide spread, so I paid prweb $80 up front. You could submit a press release for $30 or $10.. voluntary payment of $10 means you can track the results.

There is no excuse - you should be promoting this way. It doesn't take much time. The costs are miniscule. You can set up a blog and issue a press release in less than an hour.

Did it work? Oh yeah.. We had great results. Make no mistake. This marketing program blows away any other system I've ever used. The power is in giving the most value possible up front.

About Author

Warren Whitlock is the Marketing Results Coach. His mission is to help authors and businesses improve the results of their marketing programs. Warren is a #1 best selling author, publisher, and editor of dailywarren.com, an online web log (blog) focused on book marketing. Warren is an entrepreneur in the computer and imaging industries, several offline businesses and Internet properties. He started his career in broadcast advertising, developing cross promotions between two or more businesses, and has used the same strategies in direct mail and other media. http://www.bestsellerauthors.com

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-warren-whitlock-8114.html

Marketing Your New Shopping Cart in Search Engines

Author: James O'Brien

Take your first steps to success in search engine marketing.

Getting a top position in major search engines for your shopping carts is hard work, it can take 1 month, it can take 10 years. Follow these rules and techniques and you are truly giving it your best shot, but BE PATIENT! It-s difficult for a reason, remember, those who give up, never make it.

This article covers;
Getting the search engine spiders to find your site.
Getting the search engine spiders to crawl your site more frequently.
Getting the search engine spiders to crawl your site more deeply (i.e., this will get them to look at more than just your site-s homepage.)
Setting your site for maximum keyword optimisation
Building link popularity for high rankings


Understanding Rankings
This "article" covers several areas which major search engines uses to rank sites in their search results.

"Natural" results, (as opposed to Paid Results) should be regarded as the major target of your business to be ranked highest in the world as they provide long term targeted visitors for your store. The "paid" results are considered by many to be a short term objective as they provide instant results but more of a costly outlay for visitors (PPC).

The shopping carts that rank high in the major search engines (like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc) are the ones getting traffic, and often sales.

Search Engines have computers and programs called "Spiders" that collect information about your web pages in an attempt to "figure out" what your pages are about. These spiders gather information from your pages and use these in factoring which sites get ranked higher than others. Search Engines analyze over 100 On-Page Factors when "spidering" your web pages.

Some of the major On-Page Search Engine Optimization Factors are:

Keyword Density
Words in Title Tag
Words in the Page
Words in Links
Words in Headings
Words in Bold
Beginning Words
Words in URL
Meta Tags (some older small engines)
HTML Validation
Directory Listings
Link Structure
"Indexability" of the page
and Hundreds of Other Factors


What is Search Engine Optimization?
When a user types a search phrase into Google, and gets back results, those results are made up of several complex formulas. When Google "Ranks" sites, it is really just performing Mathematical Formulas. There is no human involved in the process of evaluating any individual site - it is Math formulas computed from the information that Google Bot gathers from your site.

Google sends several Search Engine Spiders (computers) out to update pages it knows of, and to seek new pages that it finds through links. The name given to all the Google Search Engine Spiders is Google Bot.

Google Bot can not view pictures. Google Bot can not see if the site is "Pretty" or "not". It also doesn-t read Meta Tags the way that the older search engines once did.. Meta Tags are not bad, but they are mostly a thing of the past.

For an example of Google Search Engine Optimization, go to Google and type in any search phrase. Google will go through the list of sites that are in its database and look for those pages that mention your words at least once. On the Google results page all of these sites will be the X number in the "Results 1 - 10 of about X NUMBER". You must mention the terms and phrases that you want to get found within your page-s text. In other words, if you are marketing a phrase, then that phrase had better be mentioned at least once on the page to have a chance of showing up in the results.

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To start with you will need a web site that offers lots of good keyword specific information, content is King! Internet Marketing or Search engine optimisation starts with finding the best keyword phrases for marketing.

This is NOT a guessing game - keyword marketing is a science, and an art.

Analyzing keyword phrases is the foundation of everything you will do for your internet marketing campaign - Choose your words wisely. Ashop shopping cart software provides merchants with free web promotion tools including a keyword suggestion tool and density analyser which are found in your admin panel when logged in. These will help you get started.

Keyword Marketing

To find the best keywords to target, start by asking the following questions:

What is the ultimate goal of your site? Keep this in mind when choosing words.
Who is your target market? Try to "think" like them.
What words might they type in to find your products / services - always assuming they don-t know your company name, or anything about your company? Be sure to put yourself in their shoes!
It is best to choose keywords that are highly relevant to your products and services. For a customer wishing to sell Sun Protective Clothing it is better to target the keyword "sun protection clothing" compared to "sun" or "clothing". Aside from individual keywords being to broad, they are also very competitive.

Keep in mind that most people search using 2-3 word phrases. In the Internet Marketing field we call these words "keyword phrases". Come up with a list of as many phrases as you can from your brainstorming session. Add these to your keyword marketing list.

The best-case scenario is choosing targeted keyword phrases which are popular. Optimizing your shopping cart for keywords that no one is searching for is a waste of time and money.

Keyword optimisation has many factors making it a powerful marketing tool, this is a large part of the reason why websites are ranked higher than others, if it were only up to a couple of factors then search engines could not honestly clearly rank billions of sites.

Some important factors when using your keywords include;

Keyword density (roughly 16% repetition per page is good)
Keyword placement (more weight is given to first 25 words of text on a page, repeating on every page, in the URL, in the site title and footer all help).
Keyword properties (bold, italic, underlined, font size (whether it is a header title or a subtitle) all make keywords stronger).
Use of alt tags (mouse over image text)
Hyperlinking keywords to pages within your own site using the same keywords.
Hyperlinking keywords to pages outside your own site with similar topics and keywords. (not proven but seems to help)
DO NOT:

Hide keywords as the same colour as your background
Repeat your keywords too often or all in a row with commas (keyword spamming)
Write your keywords so often it compromises the value of your site content. Content still needs to make sense!
Mention the words "trade links" "link exchange" or similar in any pages you are linking to people, it may get you banned from Google.
Mention the words "under construction" or similar on your home page as this often prevents sites from indexing in Google
A little more in depth

The Google Search Engine puts A LOT of weight on the text that is found in the TITLE tag. Most search results will show pages that have the searched words in the title tag.

Also good Search Engine Optimization will have the targeted keyword phrases at the beginning of the page since the text at the beginning of the page has more relevance than the text on the rest of the page. This means that your first few sentences on the page should mention your targeted keyword phrases.

Search engines also likes it if you have text links on the page that include your keyword phrases. If you have a navigation bar that is pictures (and not text) then you will want to also add some text links on the pages that link to your "important" pages, and it-s better optimization if you have those links be the keywords that describe that page.

Another small factor which can help is the use of "ALT" tags. These are the tags that a designer will put within a picture. You can view these tags by hovering your mouse over a picture, and then keeping your mouse still, you will then see the text for the ALT tag pop up.

Ashop Commerce shopping cart software has already built one of the strongest platforms in the world to create the best layout and properties of your keywords by the standard use of our software, however, a manual optimisation to target keyword content is always extremely beneficial. Their Kick Start Package looks at these specific keyword phrases, density, properties, placement and the most important part of optimizing a site for Search engines, Link popularity.

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Link popularity is by far the most important factor in gaining a high ranking position in Search Engines for the keyword phrases you use within your site.

"Link popularity". In simple terms, means that the more websites which link to any page, the more popular that page is, and thus, pages with more links TO THEM, should rank higher.

Caution 1!: Cross linking
For site owners who have a number of sites, it-s not unusual to see them linking to each other on every page in an effort to keep visitors within their "network" but also to boost search engine rankings, this is called cross linking. This can not only impede getting a new site listed, but also have a negative affect on all cross-linked sites as Google sees it as an artificial method for improving rankings. My advice is that if you do wish to cross-link your own sites, do it from one page only - your "about" page is probably most suitable for this.

Caution 2!: Reciprocal linking
Reciprocal Linking is a well recognised form of artificially building link popularity and in turn higher rankings in search engines. The only way reciprocal linking may help a small amount is if sites of similar content/topics are linking together and the links are placed within relevant keywords. Simply exchanging links with sites to improve rankings will more than often do damage to your rankings rather than improve them. Google can see when a site is doing link exchange programs by analysing how many links in one page, the keywords surrounding the link and the relevancy of the sites linking, DON-T TRY TO TRICK GOOGLE! As an important note, do not mention the words "trade links" "link exchange" or similar in any pages you are linking to people, it may get you banned from Google, it is considered an artificial method of inflating PageRank

A more in depth look at link popularity is to explain the "GOOGLE PAGERANK" system. This is Google-s own link ranking system based on the "quantity" and "value/importance" of the inbound links to your site.

To find PageRank you will use the Google Tool Bar. Click here to get the Google Tool Bar for FREE - be sure to download it with the "Advanced features". In the Google Toolbar you will see . If you move your mouse over the graph and then keep your mouse still, a yellow box will pop up and tell you the Google PageRank of that page. PageRank is on a scale of 0 to 10.

The Google website explains PageRank as:
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page-s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." - Google.

As you get more quality links to your site, your PageRank will increase. e.g. 5 highly important sites linking to you may equal 5,000 less important sites linking to you.

Check your current link popularity. (How many sites are linking directly to you?)

You can check your site-s current quantity of links by going to any search engine and typing in link:http://www.mydomain.com


How to gain link popularity

There is an incredible amount of free sites, directories and search engines out there offering a free link to your shopping cart by simply submitting your domain name and details. I will list these in the next couple of pages. Use them, they are of great importance in building your link popularity quickly and easily.

What you SHOULD do;

List your domain name as a clickable, keyword rich link within other peoples websites, directories, search engines and forums. Also aim to have an inbound link to many of your custom pages and products pages as this will allow the spiders to list and rank your deeper website pages.

What you should NOT to do;

List your site using non-reputable mass link submission programs or with FFA (Free for All) directories. This will do major damage to your rankings including exclusion of Google in some cases.
I-ve seen this happen many, many times - a site owner submits their web site to the engines, gets impatient after a couple of weeks and then decides to take out a "1,000,000 visitors for $24" campaign.
Many of these cheap traffic strategies can actually get you banned. Rule of thumb - if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is - and you should steer clear of such schemes. This is especially the case where the method of delivery of traffic is through a page on your site being displayed. Not all such advertising campaigns are shonky, you just need to be careful.

Be patient - there really is no magic solution to rankings and listings; solid and ethical search engine optimization strategies are still the only way to go.

Websites

You know the saying "It-s not what you know, it-s who you know"? In this case it applies to how many friends, colleagues, associates etc you have with websites willing to link directly to yours without asking for a link in return, this may even cost you a little to persuade them. This is where a high PageRanking website linking back to yours can be of the utmost value, it can mean the difference between ranking on the 5th page in Google or the 1st.

Directories

There are literally thousands and thousands of free directories willing to list your domain in their site based on whether your site is in reference to a certain industry or whether someone is recommending your site etc. Best way to find these helpful directories is to type in your stores industry keyword and then the word "submit" or "directory" and so on. Some of these directories have great page ranks so they will really help.

Caution: Don-t waste your time linking back to them unless they are purely a helpful link within your site, this will basically cancel out the link they provide in their system.

Search engines

There are countless smaller search engines out there who ask for your site to be listed with them. Search for these on Google with keywords such as "submit search engines" "free link submission" "link popularity submit". Once again, don-t waste your time in linking back to them.

Forums

Forums based on certain industries are a great source of building link popularity as you can chat for days in them finding out great tips for your site whilst leaving your domain as a link in your signature each time. Don-t spam these forums, you will get kicked out and annoy hundreds of people at the same time, then your links will be deleted. Some forums also hold great Google PageRanks so they will really help you.

I hope this provides you with enough base learning to get you underway and see some decent rankings over the coming months. Good luck!

James O-Brien
Advanced Shopping cart software

About Author

James O'Brien
http://www.ashop.com.au

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com

Problems with availability time?

Author: Guest

Many companies do want to interact with online customers and use their feedback, but they lack the personnel or time to do that. It is really important to have the will, anything else can be settled out. If you are one of those, read further and you might get some ideas.

Some companies place the "chat button" on their website, but rarely are available for support. Some of the others adore the concept, but are unable to organize the website support issues because the lack of time or personnel.

In any case, you must carry out whatever you start doing and keep your promises to your website visitors. Inconsistency and false information can make your interactions with customers worse.

Although the solution lies in analyzing and using the most of your resources in the situation, here are some starting ideas to help you decide:

• You can place an expert in the field to answer the questions of your website visitors in appointed hours. For example: If you are a website for diet products, you can put expert in nutrition available 2-3 hours per day at stated hours on the website. That would lead to increasing the amount of your website visitors, as well as your credibility and reputation.

• You can state smaller interval of "availability hours" each day, by writing: "Operators are available from 12:00 until 15:00 each day. We are glad to answer any of your personal questions, requirements and doubts".

• If you sell standardized products, you can state availability hours for receiving customized orders from your customers. You can place your sales and technical staff online in appointed hours and inform your current and potential customers about the service.

• Put your current employees to serve online customers while their working time interchangeably. They already know everything about your products and the company and probably don't need additional training.
For example: If you have a store, you can setup your shop assistants as receptionists on your website. They can split the support time into smaller intervals and provide support rotating.

• If you already have a phone-support personnel, you can also use them to serve online visitors. They all have the knowledge and availability of new streams of information and can adapt and start almost immediately.

Depending on the situation, these solutions can become very creative. We will be glad to receive some of yours.

About Author

Dijana Dimitrovska is Marketing Strategist at iTechnologies Corporation. If you want to improve your customer service for your website visitors, visit www.activereception.com and find out more about this on-demand live chat support software.


Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-guest-6.html

Combine Mortgage Prepaying and Equity Lines of Credit and Save Thousands

Author: Mary Wise

It is possible to reduce significantly the home loan length and save money by combining a home equity line of credit and a mortgage prepaying schedule.
It is a simple way of reducing the home loan principal and saving thousands on interests.

Mortgage Prepaying

Mortgage prepaying consists on cancelling part or the total amount of the mortgage loan remaining debt. If the type of mortgage loan lets you pay part of the principal and not only interests, then you will be saving money by prepaying your mortgage.

The reason why prepaying part of the principal can save you thousands of dollars is that interests are calculated as a percentage over the principal. If the loan capital is reduced, the interests charged will also be reduced.

Since the interests are the lender earnings, many lenders penalize these practices either by not letting you prepay the mortgage or by charging prepaying fees in order to discourage these practices.

Home Equity Lines of Credit

The difference between the propertys value and the remaining of the home loan debt constitutes equity. And the equity you have build on your home since the mortgage loan was agreed, can be used to obtain further finance in the form of a home equity loan or line of credit.

A home equity line of credit is guaranteed with the same asset as the mortgage loan. This line of credit usually carries lower variable interest rates which allows you take advantage of good market conditions and get money at probably the lowest rates on the private financial market.

Combining Both

Prepaying itself lets you save thousands of dollars in interests. But in order to do so you need to save a significant amount of money and make a lump mortgage payment every 4 or 6 months in order to reduce the principal. You will then get fewer interests and thus, lower monthly payments that will let you save even more money each month.

However, you cannot always save enough money to make such payments and if you want to have any reliability in your finances, you will probably want to have an extra amount available for any unexpected situation.

At this point is when home equity lines of credit come in handy. Since they carry low interest rates, these lines of credit are the perfect solution for solving the problem of unexpected situations. Even if you have not save enough money, you can turn to them in order to get extra money and make a mortgage payment to keep canceling the principal.

You will then destine the extra money to repay the amount you borrowed from your home equity line of credit. Moreover, if anything unexpected comes to happen you will have more cash available on your line of credit and will not have to apply for a loan and wait to be approved.

In order to see if this is the solution for you, you need to go through your mortgage loan terms and check if there are any penalizations for prepaying your home loan. Then compare the amount you would save on interests with the prepaying fees and the home equity line of credit costs. If the overall transaction saves you at least a couple of thousands and reduces your mortgage length, then seize the opportunity and start prepaying your home loan.

About Author

Mary Wise, a professional consultant at http://www.badcreditloanservices.com with twenty years in the financial field, prevents consumers from falling into the hands of fraudulent lenders.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-mary-wise-7616.html

New Challenges in Workers' Compensation

Health-care inflation is becoming a larger part of the workers' comp equation. And that is fundamentally changing the way companies manage and control this expense.

Over the past 10 years or so, medical cost inflation hasaltered the makeup of workers' compensation costs from about 60 percent indemnity (payments for lost wages) and 40 percent medical expenses to 45 percent indemnity and 55 percent medical costs. As a result, organizations' ability to manage medical outlays has become a major driver of their success in managing and controlling their overall workers' comp budget.

"Health-care cost inflation is even greater in workers' compensation than in general health insurance," says Joseph Paduda, principal with Health Strategy Associates, a Madison, Conn.-based consultancy. Several factors are driving the trend. Workers' comp requires no deductible; it covers the first dollar and every dollar of a claim, so it offers no incentive for workers to control costs, for example by choosing generic drugs over name-brand products. "The [insurance] industry has done a terrible job of managing medical expenses in workers' compensation," points out Paduda. "At 10.5 percent, health-care inflation in workers' compensation is two to three percentage points higher than regular health-care cost inflation.

"Insurance executives do not understand what is driving medical costs," Paduda adds. "They look at the health-care costs in workers' compensation as a monolithic 'blob,' " he says, rather than examining each component of medical care to gauge its impact on overall costs and finding ways to rein in those expenses. For example, in many cases, managing the cost of physical therapy requires a focus on controlling utilization -- not price. "The problem is the frequency and volume of service," Paduda explains.

Overutilization is a key driver of cost inflation in workers' comp. According to Paduda, research has shown that workers who are treated by physicians who are experienced at treating workers' comp cases return to work faster and generate lower claims costs overall. That's because these physicians understand that their function in a workers' comp case is to treat the work-related injury so that the patient can quickly return to functionality.

"These physicians do not focus on what the individual can't do, but on what that person can do with appropriate medical care," says Paduda. "Most physicians don't work that way and end up doing too much to treat the patient."

Some states, including California, Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri, have enacted workers' comp reforms designed to give employers broad opportunities to ensure that employees receive appropriate care. For example, California now allows employers to establish medical provider networks that consist primarily of occupational medicine specialists.

"Companies cannot change the benefit structure," says JoAnn Ralph, managing consultant and principal with Rothstein Kass Insurance and Risk Management Group, a consulting firm based in Roseland, N.J. "But they can use existing laws to manage claims, get people back to work and get some empathy into the process" by showing injured employees that they care about them and want them back on the job as soon as possible.

Originally printed in the January 2006 issue of Business Finance

10 Money-Saving Tips

1. If you have your haircut every 3 weeks, try going 4 or 5 weeks in between haircuts. If you pay $10 for a haircut, you could save $70 a year by having a cut every 5 weeks instead of 3.



2. Buy only generic basic types of cold cereal, if your family must have it. With fall and cooler weather coming, it's a good idea to introduce hot cereal. It's usually the best buy and by using the microwave oven to prepare, it is almost as quick to fix as cold cereal.



3. If you have a cell phone, don't buy the accessories at the "cell phone store". Check out prices at local discount stores first.



4. Quit smoking. Need we say more?



5. In some states, children's immunizations are offered free at local health clinics. Call the local health department to inquire.



6. Wash, wax and detail your own vehicle instead of paying someone else to do it.



7. Put a little money aside every month in order to pay your car and homeowners insurance annually. Most insurers charge a fee (sometimes hefty!) for paying monthly. You'll also avoid those mid-year increases.



8. When making instant pudding from a box, add an extra cup of milk. The pudding "sets up" the same and tastes the same, but you have one more cup. You might want to experiment with adding a little more. And of course, another money-saver is to use reconstituted dry milk.



9. Meat prices are soaring, so plan to have a meat-less meal at least twice a week. Substitute an egg or pasta dish. Or maybe canned tuna or salmon.



10. If you love magazines, try sharing with a friend. Each of you subscribe to a different magazine, when you're finished reading, swap.



"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship." --Benjamin Franklin



Helping you live the good life...on a budget! Cyndi Roberts is the editor of the "1 Frugal Friend 2 Another" bi-weekly e-newsletter and founder of the website of the same name. Visit http://www.cynroberts.com to find creative tips, articles, and a free e-cooking book. Subscribe to the e-newsletter and receive the free e-course "Taming the Monster Grocery Bill".

1. 
   

Adaptive Planning for Profitability inAsset Management

by Eric Krell | page 1 of 6

Why today's top companies are finance-driven.

As soon as Microsoft Corp. finalized its new long-term strategy 18 months ago, all eyes in the conference room turned to John Connors. The company's senior vice president, finance and administration, and CFO would play a pivotal role in supporting the strategic shift. Connors made big changes within the finance function to closely align his team with four of the new strategy's core objectives: to better clarify Microsoft's future direction for shareholders, to improve the speed and quality of decision-making by dividing the company into seven business segments, to sharpen the allocation of resources, and to drive growth in several markets.

"One of the first decisions we made was to increase the number of senior-level finance people in those businesses," reports Connors. He appointed a divisional CFO to each of the seven new business units. "We've always had a very strong corporate finance function and strong field finance because those groups had P&Ls," he says, but the customer-facing portions of the business needed more high-level financial expertise. They received it.

The appointment of divisional CFOs has "allowed us to execute on multiple fronts very, very quickly in a way that would have been difficult to do in the past," says Connors. In addition, he says, the finance restructuring has brought deeper financial insight into the business groups and introduced more senior-level finance talent into the company. It has also led to an aggressive schedule for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and to broad-based efficiency initiatives, which include a reported $1 billion in cost cuts companywide to be conducted over the next 11 months.

Microsoft is not alone. The split strategy of focusing shared-services "transaction factories" on becoming as efficient as possible while simultaneously honing analytics, forecasting and planning capabilities to improve decision-making in operations is becoming increasingly popular in corporate finance, according to Accenture global managing partner Michael Sutcliff, who's based in Atlanta.

Originally Website

Tips For Startups Can Apply To Any Business

Old dogs aside


If you've ever trained a newbie, you know that there's a lot of routine stuff you'll sigh your way through. Questions or comments may bring up entirely new ideas, however, and it's for this reason that many businesses, whether they're new or old, can learn from tips for startups.

Alex Iskold of ReadWriteWeb and AdaptiveBlue put together 36 pieces of advice, and some seem rock-solid. The legal and financial information, in particular, is intelligent and might be hard to find elsewhere.

Other tips you'll have to think through for yourself. Iskold writes, "Launch at DEMO . . . DEMO is a great venue because its sole focus is to launch companies. Despite the fact that you will be one of over sixty participants, you will be given the stage and attention." He also suggests not releasing anything on a Monday or Friday, since both can be quiet news days.

Robert Scoble takes issue with the DEMO tip due to the sharing-of-attention matter. For the same reason, Mondays and Fridays might not be so bad - if no one else is doing anything, your product could get that much more attention.

Consider the pros and cons, then, but among Iskold's 36 tips (and Scoble's commentary), there are almost sure to be a few things that will be good for your business. And one thing on which they both (implicitly or otherwise) agree: it's a good idea to keep a company blog.

5 Small Business New Years Resolutions

NetBooks CEO Ridgely Evers provides tips for growing your small business.


If you're trying to grow your small business, every bit of advice counts, right? Alright, well here's five tips, or New Years resolutions, submitted by NetBooks CEO Ridgely Evers.

1. Define your success. It’s different for everyone.

What’s your measure of success? Define realistic and measurable goals, and communicate them to your employees. Put goals up in the lunch room where everyone will see them on a daily basis, and track progress against them. Give out rewards when they’re met.



2. Understand and fix the sources of error.

Pinpoint the errors that seem to keep happening, requiring everyone to run around and fix them. Cleaning up messes prevents employees from focusing on their jobs. Figure out what is causing the error, and fix it. Address one at a time, and when you’re finished with the most common one, move on to the next one. Your profit margins will thank you.

3. Make your data safe, and have a back-up plan.

“Everyone knows they should do something about this, but assumes they’ll get away with it. Bottom line: your luck will run out sooner or later,” says Evers. “And catastrophic data loss is a leading cause of failure for small businesses – no need to risk it.”

Right now, your data is probably on a hard drive that will crash or get overwritten accidentally, and there isn’t a current back-up in place. Keeping all pertinent data in a web-based system like NetBooks gives small business owners a reliable system for storing data securely...and is accessible from any computer. No more worrying about the life expectancy of your PC.



4. Create a marketing program and use it consistently.

Marketing is crucial to growth and success. A marketing plan doesn’t need to be complicated, but it needs to be executed consistently. The first step is to make sure you know who your customers are…and then figure out where they get their information and how to reach them. A great resource is “Duct Tape Marketing - The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide,” by John Jantsch. Execute your plan.

5. Increase sales – and start by raising prices.

Most successful business owners focus their energies on growing revenues to the point where the business can stand up comfortably, and keeping them there. Cutting expenses never hurt, but success come from growth.
“Growing sales should be a focus for you all year long, but the first part of the year is the best time to raise prices,” says Evers. “And you can reinvest added revenue into making sure this coming year is the most successful your business has ever had.”