Getting Noticed!

Getting Noticed!

by: Sue and Chuck DeFiore

One of the best ways to get your name out in your local community is to become a sponsor. A few hundred dollars gets your company name on little League caps; a little more, perhaps an ad at a roller rink. Donate money or materials to the local parade or a float. This buys goodwill and is great selfpromotion. If you provide a service donate that. For example, when we operated a word processing business we offered to do resumes for free for those out of work. If you are a hair stylist, offer to cut hair free to senior homes, or for children. If you run a pet related business offer some free products or service. Every business has something they can provide for free,even if it is only your time.

Be sure when you do something of this type to alert the local media. They love talking about what local businesses are doing for the community. However, do this sparingly. Don’t over use it or it loses its effectiveness.

In todayกs business arena setting up a web site is a must. For most businesses you don’t need anything fancy just a couple of pages which includes contact information, location and what your company policies are. For example, some background information on you (associations you belong to, educational background, qualifications). If you have some testimonials, this helps also. If you provide a newsletter, let folks know how they can receive it. You can also provide directions to your business, put specials on your website that you are running for the month, week or any time period you choose.

Brochures are another excellent way to get your name out there. Highlight your businessกs benefits to create copy that sells. Be sure however to make the content interesting and draw the reader in and motivate them to do business with you.

When you combine effective content with an easytoread, eyecatching design, your brochure will become a hardworking partner that will help you win the customers you need to start your company out right.

Another great way to get your name out and to tell your customers what you do is to use a Newsletter. Newsletters can be wonderful tools for communicating with your customers or prospects. Because of their format, they’re often infused with more credibility than traditional brochures. If your newsletter is little more than blatant selfpromotion, however, itกs likely to hit the wastebasket before it hits your targetกs desk.

We have given you a number of ways to get your name out there so start promoting yourself!

Copyright DeFiore Enterprises 2002

About The Author

Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 17 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our FREE กhow toก Home Business Solutions Digest, itกs like having your own personal coach: mailto:[email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 09, 2003

by Sue and Chuck DeFiore

7 Ways To Get More Repeat Traffic To Your Site

7 Ways To Get More Repeat Traffic To Your Site

by: Ken Hill

1. Make all or part of your site into a valuable directory.
Set up different sections of your site for people to submit their ezines, articles, ebooks or affiliate programs to such as marketing, writing, publishing, etc.
Your directory will not only increase your repeat traffic but will also help you to attract very targeted visitors to your site that are interested in your products or the products of affiliate programs youกve joined.
2. Publish a whatกs new section.
This section will keep your visitors up to date on any new additions to your site and is especially useful if your site is constantly updated by you or by your visitors who submit their own content to your site.
3. Provide resources on your site that your visitors can use on a regular basis such as a search engine submitter, email formatter or meta tag checker.
4. Add a discussion board to your site where your visitors can network with each other.
Post your own tips and advice to your board along with your signature file and use your discussion board to get to know your visitors better.
This will help you to continue to improve your product, copy, and service and can also help you to gain ideas about new products for you to offer your visitors.
5. Create a list that your visitors can subscribe to that announces to them when your site is updated.
For instance if you ran an article directory you could list the titles and descriptions of the newest article submissions to your site along with the URLs where your subscribers can view them.
You could also use your list to increase your revenue by selling sponsor ads to people who would like to advertise to your list.
6. Make polls and surveys available on your site.
Running your own polls or surveys, in addition to providing you with more repeat traffic, can also help you to acquire valuable information from your visitors.
For instance your polls and surveys could be used to find out how effective your copy is and to measure your customersก satisfaction with your products or customer service.
Your polls and surveys can also provide you with needed feedback that you can use when deciding on new products to add to your product line.
7. Publish an ezine.
Your ezine will provide you with a very effective way to keep your visitors coming back to your site to use the resources you provide to them, to view your articles, and most importantly to buy your products.
Provide your subscribers with special sales and discounts to increase the number of your subscribers who purchase from you for the first time and also to garner more repeat sales.

About The Author

Article by writer, Ken Hill. For more articles and a great tutorial on ezine publishing visit Kenกs site today at: http://www.netpromarketer.com

This article was posted on June 12, 2004

by Ken Hill

How to Determine Good Online Business

How to Determine Good Online Business

by: Mira Marsellia

Many people would like to start an online business, but sometimes get confused by so many offering letter which contained with hoax and seemed like scam things.

If you like to determine whether an online business is reputable one and do will give you potential income that works, you must spot in their website the things hereunder.

Good online business must have YES answer for this following question :

Is there any real address and real people behind the business?

Do you think they have good product not only for you but for MOST of people that will make people buy again and again?

Do they provide a trustworthed payment method for the transactions?

Do they have good marketing kit and representative tools for you ?

Do they have continuous education and training program?

Do they provide you with reasonable pay plan and better comission payment method?

If thereกs any representative sending you offering letter, also note for the alarm sign in this kind of letter:

Look at the title text on email subject. Do you think the email was originally written by the person who sent it to you?

This is NOT SPAM or This is NOT HOAX in title, is a phrases in title which indicated an unsolicited email indeed.

No valid reference or link to outside resource could give you more confirmation

Claims for some business which absurd and much exaggerate, and you never heard before from legitimete sources.

The language in those kind of letter give you less information and most of them geared to persuade you.

Many of them using excessive CAPITALS and EXCLAMATION marks and using extreme phrases.

Good email business letter always provide you with link to stop receive offering letter from them and the link to unsubscribe you from their database.

A representative of real business opprotunity will like to provide you with their real name, phone number, and valid address.

To find more about determining good online business, read here http://fantasticfree.blogspot.com

About The Author

Mira Marsellia is an Internet marketer and independent representative for Financial Freedom Society Inc and member of Elite Team. Subscribe here and you can get 30 days Free Training to success in internet business.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 07, 2004

by Mira Marsellia

Pick Up Your Own Domain Name

Pick Up Your Own Domain Name

by: Oleg Lazarenko

Think up a name and check if yourname.com is available. Personally, I like to use http://www.whois.com to check if a domain name is available. You may also check the registrant contact information using ขwhoisข service if you want to negotiate about purchasing the domain you like from people who registered it first.

To register domain name for our customers we use:

http://www.godaddy.com

We are not affiliates with Godaddy in any way, but I think this is the best online company which provides this service. Their rates are low and you will have 24 hours access to your control panel to change the domain name information in case your office moves or phone number changes. This is very convenient.

If you can’t get that exact name as a dotcom, choose another name. Your site title MUST be the same as your domain name. People won’t remember your domain name, but they will remember your site title if they choose to add your website to their favorites. It will also help to provide better place in Google listings. There are several rules to follow when you choose the domain name:

1. It must be as short as possible but don’t make it something like abc.com only because this domain is available. Be reasonable.

2. Make it memorable. It must represent your company and it is not a bad idea to make your company name as a domain name.

3. Make it include your keywords, something like allwebdesign.com if your website is about web design. This advice is related to search engine optimization issue. Most of search engines like to get กmainก keywords in the domain name, title and website description.

4. The domain name must be first level domain, not the sub domain of a bigger website. For example, it is not a good idea to use http://mydomain.somebigsite.com as your website name. The first level domain costs about $ 9 dollars and it not an excuse to have business website on a free sub domain. Search engines also do not like such domains and you automatically will be placed lower then your competitors in the search engine listings.

5. It is better to buy a domain name separately from the hosting plan. A domain name is much more important then a hosting provider. As I noticed, the average duration of a web hosting company life is one or two years. If your hosting provider disappears from the web, it may be a problem to get your domain name transferred to your new hosting provider.

It is not difficult to buy and register a domain name at all. You will be given a number of questions related to your location, position and contact information. All this information will be used during the domain name registration and any person who uses ขwhoisข service will have access to that information, so it will be wise to enter only your business information and not to use personal data. When you buy a hosting plan, your hosting provider will send you the letter with the name server ips. You will need to send those numbers to your domain name registrant.

Now you are ready to select a web hosting provider and buy a hosting plan.

This article may be reprinted and distributed with no charge until the credit line below remains without changes.

Thanks for reading.

Article source: http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/choose_domain.shtml

About The Author

Oleg Lazarenko

Production Manager of Metamorphosis Web Design Studio –

Flash templates and Web Templates

http://www.metamorphozis.com

This article was posted on August 17

by Oleg Lazarenko

Website and Network Stress Monitoring

Website and Network Stress Monitoring

by: Vadim Mazo and David Leonhardt

In today’s world, organizations are fast accepting the web and related applications as part of their overall business strategies. They understand that the Internet provides them with the potential to target a very focused set of customers spread across a very diverse geography.

For a successful Internet presence, it is important that the web server and web applications are reliable, scalable and always available, irrespective of traffic volumes to the site.

To achieve this, you must test all your hardware and software using tools to check your website, usually called web stress tools. These tools should ideally be used even before the site is on the World Wide Web. They can provide a reasonably good estimate about the performance of your website and a company can identify issues before they arise.

Such issues might include slow response times while opening the website, a limited number of users able to simultaneously browse the website, or a cap on the number of requests that can be handled by a processing application. Based on the results, a webmaster can identify the bottlenecks and take corrective actions before they result in lost sales.

What does Website stress testing do?

Web stress testing provides performance reports for varying elements. For example, users might be complaining that your shopping site is taking ages to load and most search results are showing errors message. Using a web stress tool, you can check the performance of your web server. To your surprise, the CPU utilization on the Server may be just 20%. But if you are also monitoring the database application, you might find that it is already running at 100% and is the most likely reason for poor performance.

Stress tools can be deployed as software solutions where you can monitor the key components of your servers such as the CPU, memory and hard disk utilizations. They are built with userdefined alerts that can be triggered if a particular parameter crosses a threshold set by the user. As an example, you can configure an alert that must be generated whenever the CPU utilization crosses the 80% mark. Although this is helpful in identifying system bottlenecks, the results are limited to web servers that are connected to your internal network.

If the target audience is across the globe, or even across the country, a company needs to monitor its website and applications stress loads from different locations across the globe. The web server must provide reasonable performance from wherever customers are located. In such a situation the software solution is unlikely to meet the companyกs requirements.

Organizations must use external website stress monitoring tools, which provide detailed performance reports on servers that are tested from different locations. The outcome of these tests can help in finetuning the settings at their ISPs and in optimizing performance of the servers. Besides this, external stress testing also include monitoring of other network infrastructures that connect to the web server, such as routers, firewalls and leased lines that provide the backend connectivity.

This is why DotcomMonitorกs stress test tool (http://www.dotcommonitor.com/webloadstresstest.asp) offers its clients stress test agents located in various countries such as the USA, UK and Germany. This service provides performance data about the website from these and other locations spread across the globe.

So if you run a business on the Internet, it is important that your website and all associated web applications perform to their optimum levels. They handle transactions quickly and in turn offer faster response times to your user requests. Using web stress services you can get information you need to ensure superior throughputs and gain a reputation for highperformance dependability among your customers.

About The Author

Vadim Mazo is CTO of DotcomMonitor

http://www.dotcommonitor.com

http://www.dotcommonitor.com/websitemonitoring.asp

http://www.dotcommonitor.com/networkmonitoring.asp

David Leonhardt is a website marketing consultant:

http://www.seowriter.net/freelance/marketingconsultant.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 08

by Vadim Mazo and David Leonhardt

10 Great Ezine Content Tips To Increase Your Sales

10 Great Ezine Content Tips To Increase Your Sales And Readership

by: Ken Hill

1. Write articles that provide your readers with a list of tips.

Depending on the topics your ezine covers, your tips could be on customer service, autoresponders, or you could provide your subscribers with a list of tips that help them to increase their sales or market their businesses more successfully.

You could also provide your readers with a list of your top tips on a specific subject such as ‘top 7 Ways To Promote Your Websiteก or ‘top Ten Ways To Promote Your Ezine.ก

2. Write กhow toก articles.

This type of article shows your reader step by step how to reach an objective such as how to write effective ad copy, get repeat traffic, or how to write effective metatags.

3. Publish interviews.

Contact experts on the topic your ezine covers and request interviews. Most people will agree as it provides them with promotion of their businesses at no cost. Publish your interviews in article format or use the popular Q&A formula.

4. Write articles that focus on a current hot topic, trend or that are กseasonalก in nature such as how to increase sales during the holidays.

5. Provide polls for your subscribers to partake in.

Publishing polls will help you to increase the number of people that read your ezine because your subscribers will be interested in seeing the results.

Your polls can also be used to help you decide on changes in your content, publishing schedule, or to decide on new things to add to your ezine.

6. Provide your subscribers with resources related to your ezineกs topic such as places to promote their businesses, ezines, etc.,

You could add these in a recommended resources section. You could also provide a list of your favorite resources such as your top 5 books/ebooks on ezine publishing, marketing or web design with a brief description of each of your resources.

7. Publish an editorกs note at the beginning of each issue.

Use your editorกs note to increase your profit by announcing any new sales or discounts you have on your products or services.

Also use your editorกs note to increase your credibility by providing tips on the topic your ezine covers and by telling your subscribers how youกve helped your clients or customers.

8. Provide endorsements within your ezine for your products from respected experts in your field or list testimonials from your satisfied customers.

9. Add an กAsk The Editorก section.

Write out thorough, detailed answers to your subscribersก questions within this section.

This will increase your status as an expert in your field, which will lead to more sales of your products.

You can also use questions you get from your subscribers to get ideas for articles that your subscribers will enjoy and that will keep them reading your ezine.

10. At the end of each issue, tell your readers what your next issue is going to be about such as the title and description of your feature article or anything new that you have planned.

This will help you to increase your readership by getting your subscribers to look forward to your next issue.

About The Author

Article by Ken Hill. Pick up Kenกs new informative course on ezine publishing. Discover tips to successfully promoting your ezine including ways to increase your subscriptions by participating in successful joint ventures with other ezine publishers. Pick up your free course today at: mailto:[email protected]

This article was posted on April 22, 2004

by Ken Hill

Web Design Illustration Tips

Web Design Illustration Tips

by: Grannyกs Mettle

Pictures are worth a thousand words. So are illustrations and images on any web page. Your illustrations will either make your visitors stay and read on, or make them decide to skip and click on another web site.

For best results, you could apply the following tips for illustrations in your web pages:

• Use colors from a typical web palette for your illustrations. If you use solid colors for your illustrations, try to stick to the standard 216 colors of the web palette. The colors will have the same look on any type of computers and web browsers. If you want to use color gradients or blends, try it out first on your screen set to only 256 colors. This is to avoid having your colors look very muddied, unattractive, and hard to distinguish. If it doesn’t look good at this resolution, try a different color blend that is not as harsh. Furthermore, the colors in your illustrations should also match those used in other graphics of your web site layout. This includes the masthead, sidebar, buttons, icons, image maps, among others.

• Provide thick lines in your illustrations. Results in the printed image differ from images on your computer screen. Small lines that are visible in your printed image will show up more thinly or not at all on the screen. This is because the monitor has a much lower resolution than ink to a printed page. Remember to make your lines thicker and your illustrations will be seen more clearly by browsers, even to the most minute detail.

• Browsers should be able to download quickly. Speed is important for people who browse the internet. No matter that your illustrations are great and worthy of praise, visitors will definitely leave your site in a snap if they are too big in file size and difficult to download. A big file for an illustration takes a long time to download. Test first your illustrations at a smaller file size, either by reducing the amount of colors or provide them with less space on your screen. If they look good then provide a smaller version. Your visitors will be grateful and stay longer at your site.

• Your illustrations should attract attention. Your illustrations should be able to attract your visitorsก attention and make them want to read and click on to further pages. A very good illustration also adds perspective and character to your words. So make your illustrations speak for your web site.

• Illustrations are there to compliment, not control. Illustrations are made to compliment your web page and not to overpower other elements. They should be able to attract attention but not so much that visitors become distracted from the content. Allow for some breathing space. Provide white spaces in between images. Also, don’t overcrowd your page with too many illustrations. Place them strategically in the whole web site.

• Provide relevant illustrations to the web page content. Your illustrations are worthless if they don’t convey the message you want to send out. In addition to confusing your audience, they also take up too much time to download. They need to compliment your content. One look at your illustrations and the visitors should be able to have an impression of what they are about to read.

• Save illustrations in the proper file format. Save your illustrations in their proper file format, such as .gif and .jpeg. If you used mostly solid colors and lines, save your illustration as GIF files for it to look sharp. On the other hand, save illustrations as JPEG files if you used gradients or blends.

• Provide protection for your illustrations. Copying and downloading of images and illustrations are very common. Hence, it is important for you to protect your illustrations from unauthorized use. You could provide a copyright symbol with the name of your company or organization to your illustrations. If you want additional security, you could also subscribe to a digital watermarking service that allows visitors to see your name as author and copyright holder of the illustration. This kind of service also provides tracking of other sites in the web that displays your illustrations without permission.

About The Author

Grannyกs Mettle is a 30something, professional web content writer. She has created various web content on a diverse range of topics, which includes digital printing topics, medical news, as well as legal issues. Her articles are composed of reviews, suggestions, tips and more for the printing and designing industry.

Her thoughts on writing: กWriting gives me pleasure… pleasure and excitement that you have created something to share with others. And with the wide world of the Internet, it gives me great satisfaction that my articles reach more people in the quickest time you could imagine.ก

On her spare time, she loves to stay at home, reading books on just about any topic she fancies, cooking a great meal, and taking care of her husband and kids.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 07

by Grannyกs Mettle

10 Explosive Ways To Elevate Your Sales

10 Explosive Ways To Elevate Your Sales

by: Ken Hill

1. Publish an ezine.
Your ezine will provide you with a powerful way to continue to keep your marketing message on your visitorsก minds.
Get more of your visitors to subscribe to your ezine by stressing the benefits your ezine will provide to them, and by providing a bonus for subscribing to your ezine.
Also get more of your กalmost subscribersก to join your ezine by making a sample issue available on your site by autoresponder or by publishing an archive of your past issues on your site.
2. Have an about us section.
This section will help you to better tell your visitors what you can do for them.
It will also allow your visitors to get know you a little better, which will help you to increase your visitorsก trust in you.
3. Publish lots of testimonials from your past customers.
Your testimonials will help you to build up your visitorsก trust and confidence in your product.
Include your testimonials on your site and also include a couple of testimonials in each issue of your ezine to strengthen your subscribersก trust in you and your product.
4. Offer a money back guarantee.
Your guarantee will show that you stand behind your products or services and help you to alleviate any doubts or concerns your visitors may have about purchasing from you.
5. Provide an affiliate program for your visitors and customers to join.
View your affiliate program as a partnership between you and your affiliates and provide them with resources they can use to successfully promote your products and earn commissions.
For instance, you could provide them with sample ads, sample recommendations, and ebooks that they can rebrand with their affiliate URLs.
You could also make your articles available for them to publish in their ezines or on their websites with their affiliate URLs in your resource box.
6. Add a bonus for purchasing from you.
Your bonus could be ebooks, a resource that your visitors can use to promote their businesses, or you could provide your customers with a consultation with you.
7. Give your visitors a deadline for getting your bonus or for purchasing your product at a discount.
Your deadline will bolster your sales by giving your visitors an urgency to buy your product.
8. Include bulleted lists within your copy that detail all the benefits your visitors will get from purchasing your product.
Add a call to action such as กclick here to order nowก after your bulleted lists.
9. Answer your visitorsก questions quickly and in a professional and friendly way.
Some of your visitors may have a lots of questions about your service. Be sure to offer detailed answers to them.
10. Write articles.
Writing articles is an excellent way for you to get more traffic to your site.
Writing articles will also help you to get more new subscribers to your ezine as your articles will give your readers a sneak peak at the quality content that they can expect from you.

About The Author

Article by writer, Ken Hill. For more articles and a great tutorial on ezine publishing visit Kenกs site today at: http://www.netpromarketer.com

This article was posted on July 01, 2004

by Ken Hill

Does Your Website Make The Grade?

Does Your Website Make The Grade?

by: Mal Keenan

If you aren’t making money after sending any quantity of visitors at all to your website then you may be making simple mistakes that ARE costing you money and affiliate signups. I remember my own first marketing website it was like a night on the strip in Las Vegas, banners flashing all over the place hoping to attract prospective buyers and affiliates. Needless to say it didn’t do too good and I moved on.

Today I own many different websites and domain names and they all try to follow simple rules that will ensure my visitors don’t click off before the site content reaches their toolbar. Have a look what I believe to be a perfectly structured site and one that I have found great success with:

http://www.eliteteamireland.com/

Did you look closely? The reason for the success of this site is that it doesn’t contain many of the marketing errors that new and not so new online business entrepreneurs will make in todays market. If you are a member of an affiliate program that contains these erros then you need to take action immediately. If you don’t have the option to create your own site for affiliate promotions then you need to find a new program to promote. This or continue to suffer losses in sales and team members.

Here is a quick overview of how to structure a successful marketing site:

1)Clearly define what your website is about. Patience is a virtue but unfortunately it is not an attribute prevalent in 99% of online surfers and if they don’t know the purpose of your site almost immediately, they will move on.

2)Focus on one or two services or products. A website going in too many different directions will leave your visitor feeling confused and more likely to click on to something less cluttered.

3) Include a follow up form AND let your prospect know exactly what is is for. Most people visiting online business websites are doing so for the first time and they are very untrustworthy, rightly so given the amount of scams that have been perpetrated online, so it is important that you tell them why you want their contact info.

Explain what they are going to get for providing their details and in what form it is going to come (ie You will receive an email course over 30 days etc. etc. etc.).

4) Provide your full contact info on your site preferably with your own photograph prominently displayed. Again this is down to trust, people need to know that there is a REAL person behind this website and the more you can convince them with your own details the more trusting they will be. More trust equals more sales.

5) If you are going to make statements about your business then it is much better to back them up with testimonials. With the testimonial, like with your own contact info, provide as many personal details as possible and for maximum effect provide a photo aswel. Look at the website above again to see how itกs done.

6) Explain the compensation plan clearly. If you are running an affiliate program or are promoting one then you need to state how people will get paid in an easy to understand format. The main reason people are at your site is because they are looking for a way to create further income, you need to state in clear terms how and when this is going to happen.

Take another look at how the comp. plan is clearly set out here:

http://www.eliteteamireland.com/

The above website works so well because it allays many of the fears and answers the questions that people setting off on a new business venture will have. It does this by setting out clearly what you must do to get started and backs it up with testimonials from people who have followed the exact same methods to gain success. If you follow the same strategy with your own website then you will gain the same success as far as getting people on board.

What you don’t see in the above model, but will be explained in a subsequent article, is how effective followup and a duplicatable system can virtually eliminate any chance of failure if you follow the steps outlined.

There are people out there who will succeed at whatever venture they happen to come across but for us mere mortals it depends so much on the quality and layout of a company backed up with sound support and a duplicatable system that our financial success depends upon it.

If you don’t want to fail then ensure that you do choose a program that follows the steps above when supplying you with a site to promote. Either that or build your own.

Copyright 2004 Mal Keenan

About The Author

Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter: http://www.homebusinesstipsnewsletter.com/ For a company that DOES provide support, easy to follow training and a duplicatable system join my team below: http://www.eliteteamireland.com/

This article was posted on September 16, 2004

by Mal Keenan

Searches and Summaries

Searches and Summaries

by: Ron Tower

The Web is constantly growing and changing. The key issue for users of the Web is to know what is there that might help them, or inform them, or entertain them, and to find out in a timely fashion without spending all their time looking. There are two main ways to do this, searches and summaries.

The most common way that users today find the information they want on the Web is by doing a search using one of the many search engines such a Google (www.google.com). You enter keywords and the search engine sorts through all the pages that it has indexed and tries to give you the most relevant results. Even with this a search often returns thousands of hits. Also, since new pages are being added every day and many pages are constantly changing to reflect the current news or information, the search results may change over time. And slight changes in the keywords can also result in very different search results. Even with these limitations though, searches often provide the quickest and easiest way to find what you want.

If you think of the Web as one huge, constantly changing book, search is like looking up words in an index and then going to the pages indicated to see if they contain what you are looking for. Another way we find what we want in books is the table of contents. This provides a summary outline of what is in the book. It is hard to imagine a table of contents for the whole Web though. For one thing, the Web is different than a book in that the pages are not intended to be read in sequence. You enter and leave pages on the Web following links.

But there is something like a table of contents for the Web in that it organizes the Webกs contents into a high level summary view, and that is a Web directory. Yahoo provides one of the oldest of these (http://dir.yahoo.com) and there is a public domain Web directory that is available many places including the Google Directory (http://www.google.com/dirhp). A directory is a hierarchy of knowledge categories or subjects with links and descriptions provided under the categories. The general directories are huge themselves, so in turn it is useful to search them.

A variation on this is a personal Web directory or knowledge base. This has the same structure as these large public directories but is more focused on the particular interests of a person or group. Whole subtrees of the personal Web directory can be shared with others. A rather limited version of this is the bookmarks or favorites that we keep in our Web browsers, but the personal Web directory allows for better visualization of the information and adding more related information.

Another type of summary that is becoming very widely used is RSS feeds. These are a list of headlines with summary descriptions. The user can then click on a link to see the details. This is especially useful for sites such as news sites or Web logs where information is changing frequently. But they are by no means limited to that. Individual users can read just the feeds they are interested in using an RSS reader (http://blogspace.com/rss/readers). Web site owners provide these useful summaries in hopes that people will want to see the details and click through to their site.

Another variation on this theme of providing useful summary content in hope that users will click through is the proliferation of free content that can be added to Web sites. For example, a weather site might provide a weather sticker that shows a summary of the weather in a town. This is useful in itself. The users then may be more likely to click through to see details. Much of this is intended for Web site developers (for example, see http://freesticky.com), but it could also be used by individual users with the appropriate tool.

Another useful form of summary is a personal portal such as My Yahoo (http://my.yahoo.com) or My Way (http://my.myway.com). These allow the user to select from a collection of information modules and arrange them in different ways on a page that they can view to get a summary view. These portals are typically restricted to the specific content modules that they provide and are oriented toward a generic audience.

One more form of summary is an alert or vital sign. These provide timely notifications, perhaps using an icon that changes colors, of an important event. This approach has been used for years for network and operations management and is now starting to come into use for individuals.

These examples of summaries all fall within a category of tools called information aggregators. Information aggregators provide a summary view of what information is available and allow the user to go to the information source for the details. At this point these different types of summary tools are not usually well integrated.

The next generation of information aggregators will support much greater integration, a wider variety of information modules, and narrowcasting to more specific information communities. For example, see Personal Watchkeeper (http://www.sugarloafsw.com).

So the two most important tools for getting the most out of the Web are search engines and information aggregators. These provide searches and summaries, which are really the way we have always tried to make the best use of large collections of information. Search engines are well developed and widely used. Information aggregators are coming on fast.

About The Author

Ron Tower is the President of Sugarloaf Software and is the developer of Personal Watchkeeper, an information aggregator supporting a variety of ways to summarize the Web.

http://www.sugarloafsw.com

This article was posted on December 02, 2004

by Ron Tower

5 SureFire Ways to Make More Money on eBay

5 SureFire Ways to Make More Money on eBay

by: John Lenaghan

Have you ever dealt with a salesperson or a waiter who gave you unbelievably good service? How about someone who didn’t seem to care about you one bit?

Which of those people would you go back to the next time you needed to make another purchase or eat another meal?

Iกm willing to bet you would go back to the business or person who gave you great service. Have you ever considered that this same principle applies to your eBay sales?

One of the easiest ways to get more sales on eBay is to make every buyer think กWow, Iกve never had such a good experience buying on eBay!ก

Once someone has bought from you and had a good experience, they’re much more likely to buy from you again. They already know they can trust you, you ship quickly, your descriptions are clear and honest, and all the other things buyers wonder about when dealing with an unknown seller.

Use the following 5 tips and watch your repeat business go through the roof…

1. Quick Response

When you have an item listed on eBay and a potential buyer contacts you with a question, respond quickly. Itกs important, and actually critical to your success to check your email several times a day. Answering a question quickly could be the difference between you getting the sale or the buyer going elsewhere.

2. Accurate Listings

When you list your items on eBay, write an accurate description. You don’t have to write long paragraphs or rambling information, but provide exact measurements, colors, condition, etc. Be honest and precise when it comes to your description.

3. Buyer Contact

Once your items have sold, be responsive to the buyer. Contact them as quickly as possible after the auction has ended, thank them for their purchase and provide the required information for payment.

4. Sending Items

In your description, provide accurate details regarding shipment. Make sure the items are sent within the time you stated. In many cases, people purchase something for a specific purpose and if you don’t ship it when stated, not only do you mess up their schedule but you have probably lost a customer and opened the door for negative feedback.

5. Shipping & Handling

You should always charge actual shipping costs, or at most a little extra to cover the cost of your shipping materials. There are a number of shipping calculators that can be added to your description so people can calculate their own shipping. Another option is to state that you will provide actual shipping at the end of the auction, based on the destination. Overcharging your customers for shipping and handling is frowned upon and will often result in unhappy customers.

Itกs always a good idea to include a thankyou note with every item that you ship. It can be on a business card or something larger, whatever you prefer.

Of course your thankyou note will also include the address to your eBay listings and a friendly reminder for your customer to check back regularly for more of your great deals and exceptional customer service…

About The Author

John Lenaghan offers success tips for eBay and other online auctions at the Online Auction Advisor website. Visit http://www.onlineauctionadvisor.com for more ways to improve your buying or selling on eBay.

This article was posted on August 31

by John Lenaghan

Your Future Profit is in the Stars

Your Future Profit is in the Stars

by: Stephen Bucaro

You don’t believe in astrology but you check your horoscope in the newspaper just for fun. Me too. But millions of people do believe in astrology and are willing to pay to know the future. This creates an opportunity for you to profit from an astrology web site.

Because the earth and other planets orbit around the Sun in the same plane, the planets appear to move through a belt in the sky called the กzodiacก. The zodiac is divided into twelve parts called กhousesก.

Astrologers believe that the angles the planets make to each other and to the Sun and Moon affect our lives. Each house influences specific areas of our lives, such as health, money, career, and relationships.

The part of the zodiac that was rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of a personกs birth is that persons sign. My sign is Virgo. Virgos are hard working and dedicated to duty. They are also selfcentered, critical, and lacking sympathy and empathy. Anyone who knows me would probably say that description fits me pretty well.

Each planet controls a particular aspect of our life. For example, Mars has an aggressive influence. If Mars were to move into Virgo, my horoscope would predict that business endeavors would be likely to succeed for me, but nervous irritability would manifest itself.

Here is how to develop your astrology web site.

Use impressive graphics to display the signs of the zodiac. Give the site an air of class and mystery.

Astrologers use special symbols to write a map of a personกs individual possibilities or difficulties in life. Provide some impressive scientific looking charts.

Provide a free daily horoscope for each sign. Word each horoscope to tempt the visitor to register to receive more detail.

กA great opportunity will make itself available to you, but a person presenting that opportunity may not be entirely truthful with you. Please login for complete details.ก

4. Provide several levels of access. To login requires a small membership fee. For a higher fee, provide access to a comprehensive analysis. For an even higher fee, provide personal consultation by email. For an even higher fee, provide telephone consultation.

Important Points

Before you get started on your astrology web site, train yourself. Read a few good books on astrology. Visit some astrology web sites.

On the front page of your Web site place a link to a disclaimer that includes: กAny predictions of future events are NOT guaranteed, they are meant only as possibilities.ก

A person seeking guidance from astrology is actually looking for consolation and reassurance in their life. Regardless of what your astrological charts predict for the individual, communicate it in a reassuring and encouraging way.

If you are creative, can write, and like people, than you can provide valuable astrological guidance to people who are willing to pay to know the future. My horoscope for you is this your future profit is in the stars.

Permission is granted for the below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and the resource box below is included.

About The Author

Copyright(C)Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com. To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blank email to [email protected]

This article was posted on August 04, 2004

by Stephen Bucaro