Is Working at Home Really Right for You?

Is Working at Home Really Right for You?

by: Wendy Betterini

If youกve just begun your search for a work at home job, you probably have a beautiful concept of what working from home is like. You probably imagine yourself waking up whenever you want, sliding your feet into fuzzy slippers and shuffling to the kitchen to get some coffee, then shuffling along to your office to put in another wonderful day at work, then later going to the mailbox to pick up your weekly paycheck of several thousand dollars. I hate to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work that way. Actually, let me clarify that and say it doesn’t always work that way.

The truth is, working at home is usually a lot harder than working in an office somewhere. Scammers and hypedup business opportunity ads have given us the belief that working at home is ohsoeasy. We just relax on a tropical beach, then go collect our paychecks. Iกm sure youกve seen ads like that. Those of us who already work at home know better!

Here are some things you should consider before jumping into a work at home job:

How much do you want to earn? If you want to work for an employer as a telecommuter, be prepared to earn less than you would at a job outside the home. A job that pays $11.00 an hour in the regular workforce might pay $7 or $8 an hour at home. There are exceptions of course. Some jobs, like virtual assisting, web design and graphics, medical transcription and coding and other professional jobs will probably pay more than a simple data entry or customer service job. Many work at home jobs don’t pay hourly either. For data entry work, you might get paid per piece, and for telephone jobs you might get paid per ‘talk minuteก (only those minutes you are actually on the phone with a customer.)

Do you need benefits? The majority of work at home jobs do not provide benefits like health insurance or life insurance. Again, there are exceptions.

Taxes There are companies that will hire you as an actual กemployeeก and they will take taxes out of your pay. But some will only hire you as an กindependent contractor,ก and you are responsible for paying your own taxes.

Work availability If you are hired as an independent contractor, itกs important to understand that your employer is not obligated to provide any work for you. Most companies have busy seasons and slow seasons. During a busy season, you might be working 4050 hours a week, and then the slow season arrives and suddenly you’re fighting to get even 10 hours of work per week. If your income is especially important to your household, definitely keep that in mind. However, many people choose to work more than one job at a time. If one slows down, they simply start working more for the other.

How motivated are you? If you are the type of person who usually needs a kick in the rear to get moving, working at home will be very hard on you. You have to be extremely disciplined to sit down at the computer, log in and actually WORK each day. There are so many distractions in the home that will pull you away from work if you let them. You have to be very focused and set a schedule for yourself, just like you would at a job outside the home.

Do you mind solitude? Working at home can be lonely. If you thrive on social interaction, working alone can be difficult to adjust to. However, you can ease this by spending time with friends frequently, or joining some online groups to chat with like minded people.

Flexibility Some employers require you to work a specific set schedule, while others might be more flexible, allowing you to choose your own hours. Give some thought to which type of schedule would work best for you. When I first decided to work at home, I made the mistake of choosing a job that had a rigid schedule, and I hated it! I had forgotten that that was one of the things I disliked about working outside the home living by someone elseกs schedule. Think about how you work best, and choose accordingly.

Childcare So many mothers want to work at home so they can raise their own children, rather than sending them to a daycare. However, working at home with small children underfoot is no easy task! Itกs not impossible, and it depends greatly on the ages of your children and what type of work you are doing at home. If you work a telephone job, most employers will require a very quiet background, which is impossible if you have small children. You also can’t stop working every few minutes to entertain the kids, unless you want to put in a very long day at the computer to make up for all the interruptions. There are certainly things you can do to make it easier, like have a neighborhood teenager come in for a few hours to watch your children while you work, or work only when your spouse is home and can keep an eye on the kids.

Choosing work that fulfills you This is SO important! Right now you’re probably thinking, กI don’t care what type of work I do, as long as it brings in a paycheck.ก I guarantee that attitude won’t last long. Like I said, you will need to be extremely selfmotivated and selfdisciplined to work at home, and your job will be a lot easier if you actually like what you do! Think about the type of person you are, and the type of work that suits you best. Are you creative and freespirited, or nosetothegrindstone efficient? Give some thought to your กvisionก of working at home, and try to find a job (or business) that will complement that.

Do you even want a กjob?ก When some people decide they want to กwork at home,ก they don’t want a regular JOB at all. What they want is the freedom to set their own schedule and do work they love. Itกs certainly possible to find those qualities in a job, but it can be difficult. If this describes you, consider starting your own business instead, focusing on your existing talents and abilities. I think many people shy away from this idea because it seems so overwhelming. But people do this every day! Itกs not hard at all. If you don’t know much about business but have an interest, start learning! There are so many great resources on the internet today. If you’re still not sure what type of work at home is best for you, get out a pad of paper and a pen. Write this sentence along the top of the page: I want to work at home because . . . and then write down as many endings to that sentence as you can think of. If most of your answers have to do with freedom and passionate, fulfilling work, a กjobก might not be the best thing for you.

Regardless of what type of work you decide on, understand that working at home can be difficult and challenging. But for most of us who do it, it is also wonderful. Personally, I wouldn’t trade it for anything! And once you find the right job or business, you will probably feel the same.

If this article has given you the impression that working at home might not be for you, remember that you can change if you want it badly enough. If you’re not very motivated, work on that. Give yourself little challenges every day and strengthen your level of selfdiscipline. If you need health benefits, keep searching for a job that provides them, or research other possibilities like affordable health insurance for the selfemployed. If your resolve is strong enough, you can make it happen! Never give up on your dreams.

About The Author

Wendy Betterini is a freelance writer and web designer who has been successfully working from home since 2003. In 2005 she launched http://www.CreativeWorkAtHome.com, a community and resource center for homebased professionals, and those who aspire to be. Visit today for tools, tips and information on how you can create your own homebased career, or further improve the one you already have!

This article was posted on August 03

by Wendy Betterini

Changing Your Position When Thereกs Competition

Changing Your Position When Thereกs Competition

by: C.J.Hayden

Are you finding many of your best prospects already working with competitors? When you pursue a new opportunity, is someone else capturing the prize? Maybe itกs time to reevaluate your positioning.

Your market position is the place you occupy in the mind of your prospective clients. Itกs how they think of you as compared to your competitors. Adjectives like established or cuttingedge; highquality or inexpensive; convenient or fullservice are all relative terms. When applied to you and your business, they distinguish you from the competition.

Your clientsก impression of how your business compares can determine whether they work with you or not. Try conducting some competitive research to find out what it is that clients like about the people you compete with. Are those qualities you can emulate? In what areas are clients not as satisfied? Could you offer more satisfaction there?

Ask your current and former clients about their experience with the competition. They may be quite candid with you about what they liked and didn’t like, and give you some valuable insight into why they chose you. Check out how your competitors are positioning themselves by surfing the Net. Mission statements, lists of features and benefits, etc. will often be posted on their web sites. You can also have a friend request their literature, or hire a professional market researcher.

Target market research can help if prospects are telling you they don’t need what you are offering. If you think they need a teambuilding retreat, but they are looking for more skills training, you won’t make a sale. If you learn more about how prospects view their own challenges, you can develop a new market position to better match their mental, or reallife, purchase order. Your retreat might fly if you called it กan intensive threeday training program in the critical skills needed for effective teamwork.ก

Ask your satisfied clients for a testimonial letter. The way they describe the work you do and benefits they received from it can give you valuable clues in how to sell it to others. An evaluation questionnaire can be used for the same purpose. Try asking, กHow would you describe my service to someone who could use it?ก

Your research might uncover that your service isn’t packaged in a way that prospects want to buy it. Developing a better service package could make what you offer more attractive. A marketing consultant who has been charging by the project might find clients more receptive to a monthly retainer they can budget for. An interior designer encountering resistance to his hourly fee might instead raise his commission rate on furnishings, and no longer charge by the hour.

Sometimes just naming your service package can make a difference. An image consultant might be much more successful selling the กOneDay Makeoverก than asking clients to buy six hours of her time to revamp their whole look. When doing your market research, try asking your prospects how they prefer to buy services like yours, and tailor your offering to their preferences.

You may make the discovery that youกve chosen the wrong market the perceived need for what you offer isn’t strong enough, they aren’t willing to pay what you need to charge, or the size of the market is too small. In this case, itกs time to position yourself for an entirely different market.

A career counselor who can’t find enough individuals who will pay her fee can market herself to companies who need outplacement services. A software trainer who discovers that large companies prefer training firms that can serve them nationally might find a better market in midsize organizations. Keep asking the question, กWho is MOST LIKELY to hire me?ก until you find the right fit.

About The Author

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Thousands of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of กFive Secrets to Finding All the Clients Youกll Ever Needก at http://www.getclientsnow.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 12

by C.J.Hayden

What Is Most Important – Copy Or Pic?

What Is Most Important – Copy Or Pic?

by: Patrick Quinn

When, some little time ago now, I first descended upon the advertising scene, we were a good deal more concerned than most people seem to be today about the nature of the business we found ourselves in. We were always holding debates – in the saloon bar of the Coach & Horses in New Bond Street, to be tiresomely precise – about the meaning of advertising, the significance of advertising, and the past, present and future of advertising. And an unconscionably serious lot we no doubt were. Not to mention drunk.

Among the hardy perennials of our debates was the relevance of sex in advertising, and also the question of whether the copy element in ads was more important than the visual or vice versa.

Of course, these were the days when it was possible for agency personnel to slope off round the pub during working hours and nobody on the management side of things turned so much as a hair at our absence. Just so long as the work got done on time, nobody gave so much as a tinker’s cuss whether you were doing it in the office or down at the dog track. These days, agencies are a little more sanguine in their approach to creative people; and I recently heard of a designer being sacked on the spot for turning up at a client meeting wearing jeans – and I kid you not.

But back to our hardy perennials. The ‘sex in advertising’ question was a hotly debated topic, mainly because the copywriters and designers in my milieu were always anxious to attend the relevant photoshoots, and not because sex was liable to help sell anything. Thus, we were constantly coming up with speculative ad campaigns that featured semiclad females so that we might catch a glimpse of a naked thigh or better. Few of these concepts saw the light of day, but it was always worth a try.

As to the copy versus pic argument, this has still not been resolved to this day. Then, as now, I was on the side of the angels, holding that around 80 per cent of ads could, at a pinch, do without illustrations, whereas only about 2 per cent could do without words. (In regard to the other 18 per cent, you can make your own arrangements.)

Such an argument, as you’d expect, was met with widespread alarm by the designers, who saw that I was presaging their redundancy. Then as now, they would do everything they could to give their illustrations the prominence they thought they deserved. This usually resulted in a design in which the pic took up fourfifths of the ad, while the copy was relegated to eightpoint solid and rendered practically illegible.

My attitude, obviously, was simply a debating stance – true though it undoubtedly is. I am not suggesting for a moment that 8 out of 10 ads should be wholly typographical. But if you take a dispassionate look around you, you might agree with me that a whole lot of ads (and brochures and websites, too, come to that) carry pictures for pictures’ sake; and that in quite a few cases the pictures, far from helping the transmission of a message, actually hinder it.

The biggest offenders in this respect are what might be describes as semiindustrial ads. Just leaf through a trade mag (or brochure or website) and you’ll see irrelevance in illustration well carried out. You’ll see, for instance, pictures of the factory or, as they call it these days, the production operation. You’ll see pics of two obvious male models in white coats staring idiotically at a computer screen or a blueprint. And you’ll see pics of two obvious male models, plus a female model, in white coats staring idiotically at a computer screen. The female is included in the latter pic because the designer had originally planned for her to be shot with her clothes off.

Here’s what I think. With today’s wonderful digital photography opportunities, with an instant replay of whatever has been shot, one might hope that illustrations in ads, brochures and websites might be made more relevant. They might actually show the product in action – demonstration is, after all, the soul of advertising. But, no, we still get pics which have nothing whatsoever to do with the product or its benefits.

I don’t mind admitting that there can be few people in the whole wide world who know less about photography than I do. What I do know, however, is that promotional material is far better off without an illustration if that illustration does not augment the sales message. So, in this respect, copy is more important than illustration.

Mind you, there is a lot of copy around that doesn’t augment the sales message either. But that’s another story.

END

About The Author

Patrick Quinn is an award winning copywriter with 40 yearsก experience of the advertising business in London, Miami, Dublin and Edinburgh.

He publishes a FREE online monthly newsletter, AdBriefing, designed for those who have a very real interest in producing good advertising. Subscriptions are available at: http://www.adbriefing.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 13, 2004

by Patrick Quinn

DropShipping – A Great Way Of Making Money Online

DropShipping – A Great Way Of Making Money Online

by: Nowshade Kabir

Using the Internet to sell products and services to ever increasing number of net users is a good way to start your own business. If you are not taking advantage of this great opportunity you are just missing the boat! Consider this: ecommerce, contrary to popular believe, is thriving and increasing at a double digit growth rate. According to Jupiter Research, Online sales during this holiday season in United States are expected to reach $21.6 billion, a 19 percent increase over the same period last year. Jupiter also predicts in the report that 86 million U.S. residents will make holiday purchases online this year compared to 73 million last year, which is an 18 percent increase.

No doubt that this is the right time to get into online business. Building a website for selling products or services is no longer that difficult. You can make your own website by using available sophisticated but easytolearnanduse programs like Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft Frontpage, Adobe Go live, etc. There also exist various online web store builders similar to Rusbiz.com, which allow you to create powerful web stores using simple editors and numerous templates. You can also setup a store with Ebay and sell products through it. Finally, you can hire professional web designers to develop your website. So, the important question isnot how to get online, but what to sell on the Internet?

In one of my articles – What to sell on the Internet? (http://ezine.rusbiz.com/archivenews.html?nl_oid=19) – I wrote about selling information products. Although this is an interesting concept, you might think that this is not your cup of tea; and you still prefer to work with some tangible products. In ideal scenario, probably, you want to sell a product of your choice but don’t want to carry your own stock and don’t want to handle the shipping. Is there a way of doing this? Yes, there is! It’s called ขDropshippingข.

What is dropshipping?

When a manufacturer, wholesaler, distributor or importer, after receiving an order from their retailers, individually pack and deliver the product to the customer of the retailer with retailers address as shipper, this selling technique is called dropshipping.

The advantages of dropshipping include:

You do not have any inventory. So, there is no stock carrying expense involved.

You pay for the item only when it is sold and you got paid from your customer. You don’t need to invest money in buying the product.

You can sell just one item at a time. No minimum quantity required.

Your dropshipper will supply you with necessary product image and specification. You don’t have to spend money on creating your own.

You fix your own selling price of the product. Convenient, when you know your niche market well.

You can offer various products on your web store from multiple suppliers.

Select a product to sell

Once you decided to go with dropshipping you need to find products to sell and find dropshipping suppliers for those products. According to the same report from Jupiter following are the most favorite categories for online shoppers: Books – by far the most popular category, after that comes clothing and shoes, music, toys, video tapes and DVDs, gift certificates, consumer electronics, accessories, videogames, bed and related items, and bath items. You should also consider that this year, total Internet sales of consumer electronics are expected to rise 32 percent to $7.5 billion, making it the fastest growing group among all retail sales categories online.

The market research wizard developed by Worldwide Brand Inc. is a great tool, which shows in a probability scale whether it is worthy trying to sell your selected product online or not. You can find it over here. (http://www.worldwidebrands.com/?8188)

Locate dropshipping companies

After selecting the product the next step is to find a reliable dropshipper for it. This might not be an easy task! The things that you should look into a dropshipper are the followings:

A reputable supplier with dropshipping experience

Ready to ship one item at a time

Do not ask for any membership payment

Will use your name as shipper

Will enclose blank invoice or invoice from you

On the packaging there will be no indication that they are the supplier.

You might think that the easiest way of finding a dropshipper is just to buy one of the numerous lists on the Internet for sale. I won’t recommend you to use them for number of reasons. Often, these lists are outdated or carry wrong information. Even if you find the companies through the lists, since many people use these lists, you get into fierce competition for market share not even starting to sell.

Use the following approach instead:

Online search

The first step is, naturally, to use the search engines. Using various combinations of the keywords of your product with words: manufacturer, wholesaler, dropshipper, dealer, see if you can find the original source of the product.

If several online retailers are already selling this product, do some detective works! Check out the sites thoroughly. May be, you can find a clue, which will help you track down the supplier.

If it is an imported product go to the sites like Alibaba, ecplaza, Rusbiz, tradeindia. Locate the manufacturer and get in touch with them to find who you should contact in your country to retail sell their products. If the product is manufactured in North America, the best source to find them is Thomas register.

Trade exhibitions

You should definitely attend the trade shows related to your category of products. This is an easy way to find a number of suppliers, who might be willing to work with you.

Trade magazines

Trade journals and publications are also a good resource for finding suppliers of your products. Although, you might have to go through a sizable quantity of them before you stumble on the right supplier.

Conclusion

Dropshipping has some inherent drawbacks too. The biggest of them is you have to totally rely on the dropshipper to fulfill your order and get the product to your customer on time. The others are: you don’t have any control over the price or availability of the product. However, a good dropshipper cares for his reputation since his business depends on retailers like you. That’s why you have to be very careful in choosing the right dropshipper.

About The Author

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he has wide experience in Business Consulting, International Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace with solutions to start and run online business. You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com, http://ezine.rusbiz.com/archivenews.html?nl_oid=47.

This article was posted on November 15, 2004

by Nowshade Kabir

Reciprocal Linking OverloadAny old link back will

Reciprocal Linking OverloadAny old link back will do?

by: Derek Arnold

Are you attempting to become a Google junior by adding thousands of links on your site? Don’t bother, listen to these facts first.
So you want to get a Google top page rank and get your site listed on the first page when an internet surfer types in your keywords, right?!? Of course you do. At one time it was extremely important to get as many sites linking to you as possible, so the Google bots would spider your site, see all of these sites linking to you, and determine that your site must be of some importance because so many others are linking to it.
That was then this is now! Google is certainly aware of all of this tomfoolery and has reduced greatly, the importance of huge amounts of reciprocal links to your site, and has refined how they determine rankings and importance of each site. Did you know that there are sites with under 10 link backs that have a Google page rank of 7 or higher? It’s true. So instead of trying to fool the search engines, try these simple rules.
1. 99% of your reciprocal links should be relevant to the content of your own site. Why not try to give something that might be useful to your visitors and only allow links that might benefit them. If you own a travel site, then only allow links that might benefit travelers. Your visitors will appreciate it, and it might even bring them back, knowing that you not only offer your services, but links to some other good services. The other 1% of links should be reserved for sites with a Google page rank of 6 or higher.
2. Categorize your reciprocal link index in detail. Don’t make links hard to find, add categories and sub categories. For instance: If you own the travel site, and you are going to allow a section on rental cars, then you might have a category structure as follows: Travel Services>>Transportation>>Ground>>Rental Cars. Visitors want it made very easy for them, and the more categories you add, the easier it is to navigate.
3. Limit your links per page to 20 or less. Do your visitors and link partners a favor, do not have a page in your reciprocal link directory with 100 links on it. Separate these links into Page1, Page 2, Page 3, and so on. I promise you, if you are my link partner, I would rather have my link on your site as number 5 on page 3, than number 87 on page 1. You also will not overwhelm your visitor with the tedious task of the endless scroll down to reach the bottom of the page. TIP: This also adds more pages to your site, which Search Engines spiders look upon favorably as more content on your site.
4. There are those sites that do not fit into any category of your site that have that HUGE Google page rank, and you want them to link with your site. Here is a tip for you to keep those sites happy and get that top rank. In addition to you’re regular links directory, create a separate smaller reciprocal links directory. This may be only 13 pages in size. This directory must have a direct link from your homepage (most top rank sites require that), and title it something like ขSpecial Link Partnersข or ขRecommended Linksข. Add only page ranks of say 67 or higher to this special directory. This will ensure your most important link partners that you will not be burying their link way down inside your link directory.
Well, there you have it! There are many more tips and tricks to maximizing you web presence on our site at http://www.bullmarketer.com. We hope you will stop by and make use of our many free services.
Best of luck and warm regards!
Derek Arnold President BullMarketer.com

About The Author

Derek Arnold is the President of BullMarketer.com, a webmaster resource site offering many tools for webmasters, marketers, and designers. Also has over 18 years of experience in the marketing and advertising fields. Homepage: http://www.bullmarketer.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 12, 2004

by Derek Arnold

Social Considerations for Artificial Intelligence

Social Considerations for Artificial Intelligence

by: Noel Anthony Pierre

Social Considerations for A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)

According to Dennis Gorelik, a single perceived weakness of an AIS (meaning, an artificial intelligence society, consisting of computers trained to ‘thinkก) is that it was not born through natural selection as human beings are. But one could view whether this is a disadvantage or an advantage from a couple of sides. Within human natural selection, there are biases based on upbringing, genetic factors and how ultimately one responds to social events. For example, if one came from a violent past/childhood and ended up being a psychopath, this could override any INTELLECTUAL, socially beneficial learning that this person ultimately gets. It can cause them to make decisions based not on logic, but by their own emotional biases.

With strong AI, this factor is at least on paper removed on a grand, worldbased scale, with the Machine being the sum of all par7ts, all people connected. In WIRED magazine’s new issue, for example, writer Kevin Kelly describes the internet’s home for AI as being a breeding ground for a single consciousness by billions of people and situations. So, while in a individually controlled AI environment, the AIS might by function – or by purposeful ‘programming’ – take on the biases of an INDIVIDUAL user, within the framework of mass contributions, it becomes a gigantic collector of information. I imagine that the ideal, if AIS is to work for human advantage, is that the emotional side of the Machine would take on socalled ‘normal’ emotional states of the people and systems it serves. People do not wish to be abused or stolen from or killed en masse.

In short, natural selection is a hitormiss thing on purely intellectual and emotional basises. ขLove is blind,ข ขthere’s no accounting for SOME people,ข ขThere’s a sucker born every minute,ข etc. With the large amount of data an AIS civilization would collect, there would in theory be a checksandbalances library for more and more questionable, dubious, socially detrimental things, regardless of the user. It would become a servant to the population – not to any one particular group, person or thing.

I like to think of the example of open source software development, or mainstream sites like Wikipedia that allow the people at large to update information at will, and seed out vandals. Humans are fallible in emotional/logical ways that a Machine would not be. At the same time, the AIS is fallible by the simple inadequacy of it FULLY capturing the entire range of every mental/emotional/psychological impact of natural occurrences – from a mad girlfriend, to the effects of a tsunami, to why your college roomie likes to play the Black Dragon calypso album five times a day. The Machine, for all its exposure to the world, cannot know what people think – only what we do. So, tweaks in its activity can be monitored and adjusted by a world at large – much better than trusting the maintenance to a possibly megalomaniacal technowhiz who might want to take out the planet because he hated his daddy. 😉

A possible serious weakness to AIS is its adaptation to a world where it becomes more and more dependent on its use, from medical use to financial markets to solace for lonely, desperate people. In the Great Depression, people so dependent on the old stock exchange during the crash literally killed themselves. When the World Trade Centres were smashed down, the stock exchange similarly was affected.

We all know what possible consequences are if a massive blackout nullified even the backup systems of hospitals, heat and light, even food and water production. And many people now live out their social lives via the Internet (see the perp who almost succeeded in a mass suicide with lonely female members of his chat group.) In the event of a cataclysmic system crash for a fullyintegrated, fullyindispensable worldwide AIS, all of could become instant bedlam. So, the social importance of an AIS in that scenario would have to be very closely monitored by thinking, reactive humans after all. We will still have to use our good ol’ noggins, because you can’t eat or drink silicone chips, and what good is a mechanical AI heart in your chest if it stops working?

One more point about the implications of a fullyfunctional AIS, and this stretches to religious and spirituality. All of the world’s religious texts were written by the hands of men. Whether the belief in God came through divine revelation (as the religious/spiritualists like me believe), or simply through man’s childlike imagination (as the atheists attest) is a historylong argument between these two groups.

From a philosophical point of view, however, the question takes on a different route. If man indeed invented God, the argument could go, the issue might be how technology affects the understanding of what God is. The point might be made by the philosophers that God was written into the books by human beings, mainly to attempt to understand the meaning of life, of who we are as a species, and to help us just get by life. If systems of thought and technology can be upgraded to higher levels of understanding, why couldn’t there also be a God v.2.0? After all, they may argue, the old model was a Lord who we couldn’t see or touch – it’s a major leap of faith to know that God exists. The old text was written in parchment and dictated morality todayกs dominant medium is multibit, encrypted and often imposes morality in internet law, chat room behavior and advice columns on how to be a better spouse or member of a community.

The internet was created by us by through a vision of connecting humans to the universe. So, many people who sit on their butts for hours a day making sure their social and financial prayers are answered, may choose to be on their knees to what they consider an aliveacting, omnipresent, allknowing, allseeing, instantly accessible Diety – God for a new millennium. What effect this possible stream of thought will have on our fleshandblood world, so connected to a universewide savior to so many, remains to be seen.

About The Author

Noel Anthony Pierre is a web publisher, marketer and a multiinstrumental calypsonian (that’s the national music of Trinidad and Tobago). His is an alumnus of Carleton University and Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

His sites include

www.hifispy.com

http://darkmatterz.blogspot.com

http://botopia.blogspot.com (featuring his A.I. persona, Jexdon.

Contact him at [email protected]

This article was posted on August 08

by Noel Anthony Pierre

Web Hosting: 4 Factors in Choosing a Hosting Compa

Web Hosting: 4 Factors in Choosing a Hosting Company

by: Richard Martin

When choosing a web hosting company there are a whole lot of different factors that should go into your decision making process. One of the biggest factors should be:

Phone support. Email support is nice, but email occasionally falls in between the virtual cracks. Getting someone on the phone when your site goes down can take a lot of mystery out of the entire process. A lot of the bigger web hosting companies offer toll free support and weekend hours to boot. Phone support is a great benefit for any web hosting client.

Another factor to use in deciding whether to use a particular web hosting company is their history. How long has this company been in business? Web hosting companies that have been in existence for less than a year might not be the best choice. A hosting company with a proven track record and a ton of happy clients is certainly a good sign and might work well for you.

How about the companyกs software? This varies widely between web hosting companies. I am rather fond of Cpanel merely because I am used to it, understand where the buttons are and what the features do. Itกs much easier to stick with something you know than switching to a new User Interface. Some web hosts offer Frontpage features and others don’t. Another specific area you might want to research are the statistics programs. What sort of web statistics software is included with your web hosting account? Is Awstats included? This is one area you definitely want to heavily research before signing up.

Fees. Iกd rather pay a little more to get all the features than fight it out with a sub par web hosting company who I can’t reach if my site goes down. Iกve found decent web hosting for as cheap as $4 per month but generally pay around $15 per month if I want all the bells and whistles that Iกll need to host a larger site. A lot of people worry about hosting fees, but Iกve had the experience that I generally get what I pay for.

Finally, Iกd look carefully at the web hosting companyกs refund policy. Most offer a full refund if you aren’t happy with your service. If you are paying for a full year of web hosting up front, you might want to examine the companyกs refund policy in detail.

About The Author

You may reproduce this article on your website. We would appreciate a link back to our site which has Vioxx articles and personal injury resources. This article may not be altered and links should be kept live. Thanks.

Richard Martin is a contributing writer at LegalClips.com. LegalClips.com has injury lawyer articles.

This article was posted on January 25

by Richard Martin

How To Write An Effective FAQ Page

How To Write An Effective FAQ Page

by: David Coyne

Websites that have multiple pages usually have a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)page. There are several good reasons why you should have one.

An FAQ clears out any confusion your prospect might have about buying product. Remember, a confused mind always says no.

It lets a prospect grab key information quickly.

It creates a positive impression with your prospect because you’re acknowledging that their time is precious and they want answers quickly.

An FAQ saves you time. The more answers you provide at your website, the less customer emails you’ll get asking the same questions over and over.

Before you write an FAQ, do some research. Think about your favourite websites and formulate some questions you might ask about their products or services.

Now surf to those websites and review their FAQ pages. Were you able to find answers to your question quickly? Or did you have to scroll or click through pages to find what you were looking for? Were the questions separated into logical categories or were they put in random order?

This should give you an idea of the ขdo’sข and ขdont’sข of creating an FAQ.

Another valuable research technique is to ask good friends or customers to give you feedback on your products or service. What questions popped into their minds when they visited your website. (You might offer a small gift or discount to your customers in exchange for feedback.)

After getting everyone’s comments, assemble the questions and group by category. For example, questions about how quickly you ship products would be under your ขShippingข category, etc.

Write your FAQ in a ขQuestion & Answerข format.

Organize the questions in each category so the most important questions appear near the top.

Create a ขTable of Contentsข at the top of your FAQ page and put the most asked questions here.

Hyperlink them so your customer just has to click to get to the answer. Or hyperlink your categories at the top of the page.

Here’s a few more tips:

Keep your FAQ updated. Are the answers still relevant? Review monthly.

Keep your questions and answers concise. No more than a paragraph. If the question requires a long, detailed answer, have a link to a separate webpage.

Don’t create your FAQ as a file that a prospect has to download to read. Most people won’t bother, and they’ll leave your site frustrated.

Include info and links at the bottom of each FAQ page so that a prospect can contact you if they still have unanswered questions.

About The Author

David Coyne is a marketing consultant and online entrepreneur.

Visit his website and get the FREE ebook ขMarketing Secrets Of The Ages.ข You can sell this ebook to customers and keep 100% of the profits. http://www.dcinfobiz.com

This article was posted on May 03, 2003

by David Coyne

Why You Should Use (Not Abuse) Forums to Increase

Why You Should Use (Not Abuse) Forums to Increase Your Traffic

by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

There are dozens of reasons why you should look up the forums that are related to your market and post to them often. Here are 3 to get you started.

1 Get to Know Your Market as both an Associate and An Expert

The research alone is a good enough reason to at least sign up to some forums and read. Just by reading posts in forums, you can hear what your market concerns are, straight from consumers. Youกll be able to find what their pains are look particularly for frequent questions that don’t appear to have solutions.

For example, if you sell timeshares, and you join travel communities, you may often hear questions asking for the best times of year to visit a certain region or locale. With this information you could start a section at your site for every listing that tells the cheapest time to travel for that area, the best time of year for good weather, and other special bits of information a traveler might want.

When you’re comfortable enough to begin posting, after watching the conversation for a few days, or perhaps even a week, you might find that new people have questions that you can help them with. By consistently becoming the goto person, you increase your credibility as a knowledgeable expert, and people begin to trust your ability to provide information.

2 Increase Your Siteกs Visibility With More Targeted Links Back to Your Site

Many forums are run by hobbyists who aren’t so much concerned with marking money from their visitors, as having an established community for discourse on certain issues. These forums will often allow you to leave a link to your site in every post. The ones that are open to public viewing for visitors are also frequently spidered by search engines.

If you set up your link correctly, youกll then have topical links back to your own forum. Even if the search engine spiders can’t see these links at forums that can be viewed by registered users only, you will also find that once you become a part of the community, other members will click your link out of curiosity or because they’re looking for something specific that you may have at your site.

Even forums that exist to gain more sales of their own products often allow you to post your link, especially if it isn’t to a competing site. For example, internet marketing forums run by people who sell doityourself SEO products may allow infopreneurs who sell a different type of product, such as an autoresponder service, to post their link freely.

The focus here, at all times, is to help other members, not just to promote your product. Your link is in your signature, so unless someone asks you a specific question, you get far better results from being helpful than you do by posting forum spam that gets deleted anyway.

3 Lurk, Listen and Learn

If youกve been around forums at all, you already know that there are often 8 to ten times more people registered and not posting than there are people who actually visit and participate.

Reading without ever posting is commonly known as กlurkingก. I usually suggest that at least for the first week, you should monitor the community you wish to join in this way, just reading posts, and learning the personality of the forum youกd like to post in this keeps you from committing any faux pas that might have you corrected by another member, or even worse, banned.

Sometimes youกll find a forum that is appropriate to read, but doesn’t seem like the right place for commercial posting. Or you might find that you’re there to learn and not to teach or maybe you just don’t have the time to post as youกd like to. You can still learn a lot by being a lurker.

When lurking in forums, your primary job is to listen (figuratively speaking) and learn. Again, pay attention to questions that come up repeatedly over the course of a month or so. Be on the look out for rumored product or technology developments. Find out who is the resident expert maybe this is the key person for an interview you want to do, or an affiliate program you can join.

The most important thing you can learn from this exercise is what annoyances your market is experiencing. If you sell cat furniture, and you find out that a common complaint is availability in remote markets, maybe you can change your shipping policy to add international ordering and increase the scope of your business.

Anywhere you can fit a solution to a problem can bring you the sales you need. You may find out that you need to change your product, to enhance it, or perhaps to take out features your prospects just aren’t interested in.

This is a good solution when you have the time to visit forums and post or read. As you become more busy, youกll find yourself at the forums less and less as a poster, so this isn’t necessarily a permanent solution. However, if you follow these steps correctly, youกll soon have the traffic to foster more community relations at your own site as well.

Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul

About The Author

Tinu is a website promotion specialist who posts free information on a variety of traffic tips in her blog at http://www.freetraffictip.com.

This article was posted on April 23

by Tinu AbayomiPaul

20 Ideas for creating traffic rich, search engine

20 Ideas for creating traffic rich, search engine friendly pages

by: John Alexander

Sometimes questions will arise around the subject of gateway information pages or doorway pages. People have heard that กdoorway pagesก are BAD and some have stated that search engines กhate doorway pagesก.
For clarification on these type of issues, letกs start by explaining some simple ground rules looking beyond the jargon and terminology.
Do Search Engines Hate Doorway/Gateway Pages?
To answer this weกll examine it in two steps.
Letกs understand:
1. What it is that the Search Engines กHATEก?
and then…
2. What type of pages the search engines กLOVEก?
With this approach it will help us gain some understanding of the criteria that is most important.
1. What the Search Engines HATE:
a) To put it simply, search engines despise low quality doorway pages that contain little or no useful content. A few years ago these type of low quality doorway pages were rampantly produced as a means to try and trick the search engines. Looking at it from the search engines point of view, why even publish a page if all it contains is a couple of lines of text and an กenter the storeก link. Pages with VERY LITTLE VALUE to the reader, do not belong in a search engineกs index.
b) Search engines also despise any kind of duplication or use of mirror pages. Again, little or no content (often just garbled text or keyword rich paragraphs that have no real value) were reproduced over and over and cluttered up the search engines. These pages were supposedly going to bring great traffic but the bottom line is that they were and still are all labeled by engines as Spam.
c) Search engines hate any attempt made by Webmasters to manipulate pages optimized with content unrelated to the actual Web site. Some Webmasters were guilty of all types of trickery to try and attract clicks regardless of the site content.
Understanding these issues, clearly you could NEVER blame the search engines for their war on Spam and low value doorway pages which contained no useful content or information.
Next letกs talk about
2. What pages the Search Engines LOVE:
a) Search engines love pages that far กinformation richก and contain useful, original content that will actually make valued reading to the online visitors.
b) Instead of doorway pages (or pages with no value or little useful content), the term กinformation richก can be used to describe a page loaded with useful, quality information. Search engines love pages that are content rich and able to stand on itกs own merit. A quality information page is also part of the overall Web site allowing visitors to obtain more relevant and useful information having easy navigation through the Web site.
Instead of lightweight pages with no content, todayกs pages need to contains high quality information, which is relevant to the online audience. The information rich page is 100% quality, put together with research, relevance, thought and care. No tricks are ever needed.
Next Question is….. What kind of information goes into creating an information rich high performance page?
Invariably this question often comes up when I am teaching one of our live handson workshops. People need to understand that this is wide open to all the discoveries you make while researching your target audiences behavior. How you can meet the audienceกs needs exactly, is only limited to กyour imaginationก and the most effective way to present the information you know they are looking for, back too them. You want to give them what they ‘really wantก as opposed to what you ‘thinkก they want and do this right up front.
The focus is on creating genuinely กuseful contentก for your ideal target audience of กpotential customersก who happen to be already out there searching for you.
Not only is this what your visitors want, itกs also the key to success for search engine acceptance. You will never run in to trouble with search engines by offering lots of original, quality content that is interesting, useful and of high value, to your online readers.
In brief, key to success for attracting your target audience, is doing quality research on your target audiences searching behavior and learning to identify their needs and what they are searching for and then, giving them what it is that they really want.
Okay, so what kind of information might a information rich page really contain? That will depend on what กyour researchก reveals of course, but here are about 20 rough ideas just to get you started thinking in this fashion.
20 Ideas for High Performance Information Rich pages:
Your high performance, information rich pages might be any of the following (but not limited just to these either):
1. A Questions and Answers information rich FAQ page.
2. An introductory story related to the appropriate Web site theme (something that is compelling or educational on topic).
3. Interesting and original statistics which you have discovered through your research, are in high demand by your audience.
4. An interesting interview with someone (make it exclusive and original). People love to read about other peoples experiences and or opinions and views.
5. It might be a page loaded with various product reviews with an emphasis on benefits of each in comparrison.
6. It could be a theme related feature article or story.
7. It could be a detailed tutorial loaded with valuable กHow toก or กinstructionalก advice.
8. Your information page might even be a biography about someoneกs life that people are looking for detail on. Of course it should relate to the topical interest of your siteกs theme.
Recent eg. At the recent, sad passing of legendary screen icon Marlon Brando, just do a search for his bio and see all of the movie or film related sites that are no doubt getting additional exposure from Marlonกs fans who are looking to buy up some of his old classic films.
9. Your pages might something with a current events or newsworthy or hard news angle. Your audience is probably looking for interesting news if you take time to study what they are searching for.
10. Your information rich pages might want to contain detailed historical information that your audience is seeking.
11. There may be room for the use of information pages that use some humor or emotional content that is still of good value.
12. Would there be value to having a questionnaire which asks your audience a series of important questions. Remember that like real life, most Web based businesses are about building rapport and relationships.
13. You could build an index to a whole library of similarly themed topics and all though your articles would all be similar in theme, each individual information rich page would contain useful and diverse subject matter. Remember high value to your readers but all original (and no duplication in content).
14. What about an information rich page offering an entryway into a useful, interactive section like a message board perhaps detailing terms of use for the message board.
15. It might be a page containing an interesting advice column on your chosen theme. Just old fashioned กgood readingก which offers your readers advice or solutions to their challenges.
16. Your information page might be a reference page loaded with interesting, inspirational or famous quotes quite popular with all types of personalities.
17. Your pages might contain a related territorial map (yes images can be used most effectively with text)
18. It might be a sales letter but remember the emphasis is on quality content and originality. Things like detailed product reviews or content that emphasized some value added layout.
19. It could be a community related page with important localized community information. Tremendous value for Web sites that are looking for region specific traffic.
20. It could be any of the above suggestions with a seasonal angle relating to Christmas, Halloween, Easter, or something else appropriate to the Web content within your main theme.
One of the best ways to come come up with original ideas is to think laterally about กyour audiences needsก in comparison to how they are searching on the major search engines. For more insight on how to research your audienceกs realtime behaviours you may want to visit http://www.wordtrackermagic.com
Best Regards,
John Alexander

About The Author

John Alexander is CoDirector of Training for Search Engine Workshops. He has trained hundreds of people from over 80 different countries through seminars and workshops at locations across the globe. John also teaches instructional chats through his partnerกs, online SEO courses. Robin Nobles and John Alexander are also members of Wordtrackerกs special technical support team. John has written an eBook, Wordtracker Magic, offers unique strategies for applying the Wordtracker service to generate profits for online marketers.

http://searchengineworkshops.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 13, 2004

by John Alexander

How Search Engines Connect Sellers and Buyers

How Search Engines Connect Sellers and Buyers

by: David Leonhardt

Maggie knows how to find what she wants. She lets her fingers do the walking – not in the Yellow Pages, but at Google.com. She wants to learn about bread baking, and you have just written Bread Baking Made Simple, and you sell some great baking tools. The good news is the Google and other search engines exist for one simple reason: to help Maggie find your website.

Google will show Maggie 534,000 resources on กbread bakingก. Unless she fails to find what she wants on the first page, or top 10 results, she will never find your website listed 124th in the results. (Actually, if she does not find what she wants in the top twenty or thirty results, she is likely to refine her search to กeasy bread bakingก or กhome bread bakingก).

How do you get into the top 10 results so Maggie can find your website? You might have heard a lot about กsearch engine optimizationก and กranking analysisก and กalgorithmsก. It all sounds very complex, but it really works on a simple 1 – 2 – 3 principle.

A search engine will show Maggie only resources (websites) it has on record. So make sure to submit your site to the key search engines and directories. You do not need to hire somebody who will charge you big dollars to do this. Nor should you fall for any of the autosubmit software or services. This should be done by hand, and anybody can do it. You can do it yourself.

The search engine will rank highest those websites it feels are most กimportantก. This means you have to show that your website is most important. There are a few simple things you can do. First, make sure you have content. Text content equals importance on the Internet. Links, both coming in and going out, are key. Connectivity equals importance on the Internet. Get listed in the major directories (DMOZ.com, Yahoo.com, Zeal.com, JoeAnt.com, etc.), as this also is a measure of importance.

The search engine will show Maggie the most ‘relevantก highranking resources. Google might rank http://TheHappyGuy.com relatively very high, but it is totally irrelevant to a search for bread baking. How does a search engine know which websites are most relevant for Maggieกs search? By the number of times กbread bakingก shows up in text on your web page. By the variety of ways it shows up on your page. By number web pages you link to and that link to you with the words กbread bakingก included.

Are you ready to roll? Possibly. Some of this you can easily do yourself. But there are three places that are worth spending money to help all the Maggies out there find your website and your book.

The first is choosing the right keywords. It might look simple, but กbread bakingก might not even be the best keyword phrase to focus on. It might be กeasy bread bakingก or กhome bread bakingก. The most searched terms might not be the best, nor the term with the least competition.

The second is to prepare a link strategy. The กlink exchangeก pages that are getting more popular each day are also becoming less effective each day. Here are just a few of the linking factors that will affect whether Maggie discovers your book:

The total number of incoming and outgoing links

The importance of the sites you link to and from

The relevancy of the sites you link to and from

Which pages on their sites and on yours are being linked

What you include in the incoming and outgoing links

Where on the page the links are placed

How many links are on those pages

How many pages are linked to or have outgoing links

The ratio of links to content on the pages involved

You can implement the strategy yourself, but it is worth hiring somebody to put it together for you. Ask the person what factors he would consider when building a strategy for you. If he does not mention several of the above, your money is better spent elsewhere.

The third place to invest is to have somebody knowledgeable review your html code. Chances are that you have missed numerous opportunities to let the search engines know your website is relevant, and possibly some opportunities to show it is important.

About The Author

Discover how to climb the rankings the RIGHT way: Pick up a copy of Don’t Get Banned By The Search Engines at http://thehappyguy.com/SEO.html. You might also want to find out how to promote your website with a media relations plan at http://thehappyguy.com/publicityselfpromotionreport.html, or profit from more free publicity ideas at http://www.thehappyguy.com/publicityselfpromotionproducts.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 03, 2003

by David Leonhardt

Create Huge Income From Your Web Site 10 Easy Wa

Create Huge Income From Your Web Site 10 Easy Ways

by: Dennis Becker

The cost of setting up a web site is dirt cheap nowadays. You can register a domain for less than $2.00 as I write this (for .info domains). Hosting is also very cheap, and getting cheaper all the time.

So why are so many web sites springing up? Obviously somebodyกs making money besides the hosting companies, so hereกs some idea starters for you:

1. Sell your own products or services. They should be related to your target audience. You want to be able to take credit cards (at least with PayPal if not otherwise) on your site and deliver your product to your customers as fast as possible.

2. Sell another companyกs products. There is no shortage of companies willing to drop ship items for you, all you have to do is make the sale and place the order with your fulfillment company, they do all the work, and you profit on the difference between their price and yours. There are ways to avoid the hassles some attribute to drop shippers.

3. If you have enough activity to your site, you can sell advertising space, such as banner, classified, or text ads. Of course you need to have enough traffic coming to your site first, so that people have an incentive to want to gain exposure to your visitors. You might not make a lot from displaying small text or banner ads, but it can easily pay for your hosting fees, and enough more to invest in some software scripts that will make your site that much better.

4. Sign up with Google AdSense or another contextual advertising company, and let them place their ads on your pages. When someone clicks on an ad, you earn money. Some webmasters are making many thousands of dollars a month with Google AdSense.

5. If you have enough web space, you could rent other people web pages. You could also give them away for free and make money by including your Google AdSense ads on their web pages.

6. Charge people a fee (monthly or annual subscription, or a one time fee) to access your web site. People will pay you money for your content if itกs valuable to them. This can be ebooks, reports, interviews, software, etc.

If you find a niche market, you can spend some time researching your topic and put all sorts of articles and resources to that niche on your site. Then those who have a similar interest might be likely to want to take advantage of all the time youกve already spent by coming straight to the site (yours) that has all the answers for them already. If you have enough articles on your topic, you might want to get a site search engine (there are free scripts available) to make it easier to find the information your visitors want.

7. Make money selling other peopleกs products through affiliate programs. Theyกll give you a link to track your sales. If you haven’t heard of affiliate programs, you’re in for a treat, many thousands of people are making a full time income just by driving traffic from their site to merchant sites, never touching or shipping a product, letting the merchant do all the work and make the entire investment in inventory.

A good way to start with affiliate programs is to sign up with ClickBank. There are well over 10,000 different eBooks that you are then automatically an affiliate for. Itกs likely that there are some that tie in with the theme of your site. Write up some reviews and recommendations and send traffic to the ClickBank merchant, and if the eBook sells, you get commissions sometimes as high as 75%.

Another benefit is that if you make a page for each of your eBook reviews, you will eventually start drawing traffic from search engines because some of your pages will get ranked well for the keywords used to describe the eBook you’re reviewing.

8. Publish an ezine from your web site. Ask your visitors to subscribe to the ezine right from your web site through a sign up box. You might want to find something to entice them to give you their email address, like a free report, eCourse, or eBook. Once you have enough subscribers to your ezine, you could sell classified or sponsor advertising inside your ezine, or you could periodically review and recommend products that you’re an affiliate for to your subscribers.

9. If you have your own business already (real estate agent, hairdresser, contractor, restaurant, etc.), put up a web page to draw in prospects. All you need is a picture, contact information, a description of what you do, and you have a cheap advertisement that will pull in customers.

10. Set up a local directory of small businesses. Give each business their own page, fix it up for them so that itกs optimized for the search engines, and charge them annually for the service. They won’t have to pay hosting fees and you do everything for them. Suggest that they put the web site address on their business card, and youกll have virtually locked them in for annual renewals for the life of their business.

These are just some thoughtstarters for you. There are over a billion web sites on the Internet, there are obviously more than ten ways to earn money with them. Come up with a unique method of cashing in from all those surfers, or use one of our methods, and one day youกll be writing your own advice articles.

About The Author

Dennis Becker has been a computer กnutก since the late 70กs, specializing in helping nontechies make better use of computers. Find out how to maximize your profits and minimize your expenses by visiting: http://www.a1cheapwebsitehosting.com

This article was posted on August 10

by Dennis Becker