The most profound effect of communication revolution that the world saw in the last decade was that it made distances shrunk exponentially, continents became accessible in the matter of seconds, and the presumed response time in every facet dipped, making even few minutes lagged on any interaction a major delay. This is the change the World Wide Web has inculcated in the world of communication, something that was never witnessed or anticipated before. Now internet is synonymous with communication and a web face is an inevitability for most businesses across the globe. But the scope of internet has extended much beyond to encompass virtually every aspect of business from advertising to market research, talent hunt and internet marketing. Here we talk about the latter of the ones mentioned, the internet marketing.

Whichever be the business, in order to market a product, one need to have some sort of interaction with a customer and the success of the entire ordeal depends on how well the marketing person could convince the customer. Generally, the marketing guy manages it through a personal meeting or a phone call. Internet marketing does exactly this - marketing - but the medium here is the internet or the World Wide Web. And in this globalised world, not giving priority to internet marketing means you are putting your business at a great disadvantage. Conversely, having a strategic internet marketing plan in place is crucial for any business to compete with its rivals in terms of visibility, market penetration and yes, in amassing a solid customer base.

Strategic internet marketing ponders over the planning and execution of an internet marketing campaign in order to maximize the ROI and is the biggest of the challenges in the whole marketing ordeal. It answers questions pertaining to budget allocation, most effective methods to reach to the customers online and in laying down a comprehensive online marketing plan based on the analysis of the current online environment, competitors and the industry and its market trends.

A well managed and closely managed set of five factors that generally works for every type internet marketing can be briefed as seen below,

* Search Engine Optimization

* E-mail Marketing

* Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC)

* Managed Support

Before seeing each of these aspects in detail, let me make clear the difference between Marketing Strategy and Marketing Tactic. A marketing strategy lays down the general approaches a business firm would take to reach to its objectives in hand. On the other hand, a marketing tactic refers to the actions the firm should take in order to bring the marketing strategies to take effect. Offering an email newsletter and submitting /listing the site to targeted search engines and directories come under the latter category.

Now back to internet marketing strategy and its intricacies. The penetration your site could bring about in the customer population depends upon the visibility your site has in the internet. That is, if somebody searches for the site through a search engine, where it gets listed in the search results - on the first 10 or 20 or on the last page? Search Engine Optimization addresses this problem exactly. It is an analytic means by which the factors that eventually results in a better list ranking in search results are studied and found out, and the site is then modified or redesigned accordingly. Keyword analysis, dynamic optimization and tactical link exchange program are some aspects worked out in Search Engine Optimization.

Email marketing - as the term suggests - reach out to the customers through emails. This strategy helps to build a list of opt-in customers and prospects, which can be put into use further in ongoing marketing campaigns by means of direct emails, weekly specials, seasonal discounts, and newsletters, to name a few.

If you are ready to shell out some ready money, then Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC) is an effective option. In this method, the money-per-click inspires the search engines to list your name in a most visible format always. There are exclusive pay-per-click search engines like Overture, FindWhat.com and 7Search.com, which return the results of a search depending on how much the advertiser bid for the ad placement.

The most important of all these are the extent of services you - as a business - offer to the customers. The final result of all the online and offline marketing efforts are graded on such a backdrop and hence it goes without saying that the managed support or continued service is that what cements confidence in the customer’s mind. And as long as customers have a larger part to play in the success/failure of a business, one cannot disappoint them, and that is exactly what every marketing strategy should look forward to.

Prasanth S Freelance Writer prasanths@inbox.com

You did your homework. You carefully evaluated the marketplace and found an underserved niche of customers who are rabid for some quality information. You then found, or wrote, the perfect eBook to satisfy their needs. You created your eBay auctions and sat back waiting for sale after sale.

A few trickled in. And then… It stopped. Nothing more.

What went wrong? You know your research was spot-on. There is a market for the material. You also know you have a spectacular product—perhaps the best of its kind or something irresistible and unique. You did everything right, but to no avail. Why did you not experience the rush of eBay sales you had anticipated?

The problem probably wasn’t in your assessment of the market. The problem most likely had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your eBook. In most cases like this, the reason for lackluster sales is completely unrelated to the quality of the offering. The issue lies in sales copy.

Too often, eBook sellers neglect to write truly spectacular listings for their products that will inspire customers to sell. They wrongly believe that an interested customer base and a good product will be enough to produce the kind of results they want. Sales copy, however, is as necessary a component to the process as either of those two elements.

Writing a great auction creates the necessary bridge between the hungry marketplace and the awesome product. Without a good bridge, the customers never get to the eBook.

This simple fact is truly understood by the most successful eBook sellers. Take a look at your listing and compare it to the names you recognize as being large-volume sellers. Odds are, their listings motivate people in a way yours do not. Examine other eBook offerings on eBay that are not doing very well. You are likely to find a series of listings with stale, flat or unhelpful sales copy.

If your eBook launch on eBay was a disappointment, take another look at your listing and consider if it really does everything it can to sell your product. You simply cannot afford to let a product’s subject matter and title sell the eBook. You must intervene and build a truly inviting bridge between your customers and the eBook.

How can you get a better sales page? Writing sales copy is a skill. Like any other skill, it must be learned. Invest some time in reading about how to write copy and work on your craft. If you rely purely on your instinctive understanding of what makes an eBook sell, you are likely to be disappointed. Find out what the experts have to say and implement it into your auction.

Many full-time eBook sellers rely on the services of writers who specialize in advertising copy. These copywriters can write the sales pages you need for you (at a cost, of course). Employing a professional for your auctions may seem over the top, but if you are considering a major launch for your eBook or are planning on making eBook selling on eBay your primary area of business it can be a worthwhile investment.

A great product and an interested customer base are only the first steps to success. The third is bridging the gap between the two with auctions that truly inspire purchases.

John Thornhill trades on eBay under the username planetsms. For more advice on how to succeed on eBay with information products visit http://www.planetsms.co.uk

When it comes to preparing our taxes, many of us could use some help. The following websites offer guidance and information that may assist you in learning about how to get the most out of filing your returns.

Fairmark.com
www.fairmark.com

Recommended by Forbes.com, Fairmark.com sia tax site dedicated to helping investors file their taxes correctly, offering a Tax Help Center and guidance when dealing with Roth IRAs, capital gains, and financing for college.

IRS.com
www.irs.com

Although not affiliated with IRS.gov, this site suggests online taxx programs you can use for filing your return; info about extensions, deductions, and refunds; and Hot Topics, such as Tax Scams.

MSN Money
moneycentral.msn.com/tax/home.asp

MSN Money’s Tax Estimator hepls you prepare to file this year’s taxes with information about tax law changes. A tax terms glossary helps you decide what forms you need to file, and tax attorney Jeff Schnepper answers questions you post in the Tax Corner message board.

TaxSites.com
www.taxsites.com

A directory of tax and accounting websites, TaxSites.com provides links for state tax agencies, legal information, organizations, and governmment sites for each state.

United States Tax Court
www.ustaxcourt.gov

The U.S. Tax Court lets you dispute tax-related offenses. This site describes the process the court uses, presents FAQs about what’s involved when a case goes to tax court, and gives contact information for court offices and judges.

Yahoo! Taxes
taxes.yahoo.com

The giant search engine’s Taxes page includes Tax Tips, a Tax Guide For Investors, Tax Education, and resources that can help users find an accountant or talk with others on the Yahoo! message board.

Cal Golden is the webmaster of Tax Help Super Tips. Visit the site for up to date tax preparation tips and techniques to maximize the effectiveness of your return. Find out what Uncle Sam does not want you to know.

Search engine positioning is most important online quest both for
beginners and professionals. Why? 85% of internet people relay on search
engines to find something they want.

The fact is that we can’t live with out search engines. It is so easy
for us to find what we want on internet. According to netcraft.com (2002)
there are approximately 38,118,962 web sites. So imagine if we don’t have
search engines to find things for us.

But to get indexed in search engines especially staying on first 5 search
engine results pages requires a continous process of web site optimization.
Here are some tips that are useful to make the search engines find your
web pages and rank them good:

1. Search engine crawlers love content web pages:

Always put some text with your main keywords. Say you are offering search
engine optimization service. See the difference between these two lines:

“Our service comes with 24/7 support”

“Our search engine optimization service comes with 24/7 support”.

Get the point? But repeating the same word unnecessarily may not be good.

2. Text in images can not read by search engines:

Image only pages usually get poor ranking. Try to cut down the number of
images. If you want to put images put them on web pages with content
and ‘ALT’ tabs.

3. Links from already indexed web site:

Most important tip is keep a link to your new web site from a web site that
already listed in search engines. Search engine crwalers goes from page to
page through these links finding new web sites.

4. Links between page to page of same web site:

Search engine crawlers move from one web page to other through the navigational
links. So don’t forget to keep links to your main pages from all pages. That
means all important pages of your web site are reachable from each other.

5. Text Links:

Try to keep text links instead of a button or image pointing to a web page.
Make sure this text link has one keyword that partains to your business.

6. Javascript on your web pages:

Minimize javascript effects and search engine crawler doesn’t get the content
in between < script > … < /script > tags if you use the javascripts to include
content on web pages.

7. URL of pages:

Not all search engines don’t crawl pages with special characters and
generated dynamically by cgi scripts. So try to avoid to present your web pages
as cgi generated pages.
For example some sites use urls like this:
www.domain.com/cgi-bin/content.cgi?contact.htm&page=homepage
Avoid these type of urls.

Radhika Venkata (c)

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Question: I sell merchandise on eBay and Amazon for side income. I know users of eBay and PayPal can collect sales tax, but it seems very few sellers do. And there doesn’t appear to be a way to collect sales tax when I sell on Amazon Marketplace. Should I worry about this?

ANSWER: If you live in a state where sales tax is charged on retail purchases, as the seller you are responsible for paying sales tax to your state’s tax department for your online sales. However, you pay sales tax only on transactions with buyers in the state where you reside — you don’t pay tax for items shipped outside your state.

To pay the tax, you’ll need to open an account with your state’s Tax Department. As part of this process, you’ll receive a “resale license.” In some states this is called a “resale number” or “sales tax certificate.” So this will add to your bookeeping chores, but there are benefits. For example, in obtaining a resale license, your state is recognizing you as a legitimate business, and you will *not* have to pay state sales tax on the merchandise and other supplies you purchase to run your online business.

Also, a resale license will enable you to more easily open accounts with wholesalers — if should you ever decide to expand your business and go that route. Nowadays, most wholesalers require you to provide proof of a resale license before you can open an account with them.

Again, you don’t collect state sales tax on books you ship to people with addresses outside your state. This is because Internet sales (as well as fax, telephone, and mail-order sales) aren’t subject to sales tax unless you have a physical presence in that other state — meaning an office or warehouse.

In some states, shipping and handling fees are not subject to sales tax, but in some they are -— you will need to investigate the issue for your home state.

Some state governments have been trying to start a new system to collect sales tax on all online sales. Under this scenario, known as the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP), you would have to pay sales tax on books you shipped to customers outside your state. But it will be years before anything like this is enacted, since it’s being fought vigorously be the mail order industry.

See a real-time list of the most highly sought after used and collectible books.

Read more free articles on selling used books profitably online: http://www.weberbooks.com/selling/selling.htm

Steve Weber is author of “The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site” (ISBN 0977240606). Got a question for Steve? Send to: steve_weber@yahoo.com

So when people like that talk, I listen. And it’s always interesting to hear the views of people as to what it takes to become successful online. Some say it’s in having a nice-looking website, others in getting to the top of the search engines, some even believe you don’t even need a website to be successful online.

I don’t dispute any of these points because ultimately success isn’t built around a single variable; rather it comprises many parts to make the whole that eventually lends itself to being successful.

But there will always be certain factors that play a larger role than others in creating success. And in business, the bottom line is being able to sell.

Why do people generally buy from someone? It’s the age-old rule that will probably always remain, people buy from people that they like and trust.

And online, not being able to look a person eye to eye, sit them down address their concerns and fears to help them down the buying process, how do you do this?

Obviously having good salescopy helps, but not everyone will buy straight off the bat from a stranger, someone they don’t know, know matter how good your salescopy.

Just because someone doesn’t buy from you straight away, won’t mean that potentially they could become an excellent customer of yours once they’ve gotten to know you and trust you.

So to establish that relationship, build that trust, get them to know and like you, send them regular, valuable information, information that will enable them to see that you’re an expert, a real professional in your field.

Whether it be via free reports, a regular newsletter, ezine, ecourse, however you choose to do it, just make sure you get their e-mail addresses and stay in touch with them by sending them information that will add value and keep you fresh in their minds.

There is no truer saying in business than out of sight, “out of mind.” Capturing your visitors e-mail addresses by offering them free, powerful information relating to your product will avoid this from ever happening.

And if they don’t buy from you straight away; with time, chances are that they will. And then you’ll have yourself a loyal customer for life. (Assuming you keep them well serviced of course.)

Not to mention the other key benefit that to market to an existing list or subscriber base costs you literally nothing, so it’s literally a win-win situation.

So if you’re not building yourself a massive opt in list, you’re losing yourself massive amounts of potential revenue down the line. And in online marketing, that has to be regarded as a cardinal sin.

Learn all the Secrets and Techniques to becoming an online superstar at: http://www.internetprofitmentor.com 12 hours of video tutorials to help start you from nothing with no prior online knowledge, to be able to create your own successful, online business. And it’s all FREE.

Various techniques are used by Specialists and Webmasters to Improve Search Engine Rank. This is because more than 80% of the people who want to know something go to the Search Engines to get what they want. Hence a Good Search Engine Rank is extremely important for the success of your Internet Marketing Business. Given below are some very Special Tips and Techniques that will help you in your efforts to Improve Search Engine Rank of your website.

1. FOCUS ON KEYWORD.

Choose Your Keyword:

The first and most important step is to choose the right keywords for which you wish to rank well. You have to focus on this because all your efforts are going to be centered around this. While doing this for your home page it is important to adopt the same procedure and target different keywords for different pages of your site. This is because search engines match each query with the most relevant page and not the site.

Target The Right Keyword:

Optimizing your site for a popular keyword and securing a high page rank is not enough. You should optimize for the right keyword that is most relevant to your site otherwise your efforts will be in vain.
The keywords that you choose should be specific. Since there is fierce competition for popular single word keywords, it is better to choose two or three word phrases that specifically describe your site content.
Though you might obtain a good page rank with a very well optimized site and it appears high in the results, if no one searches for them in the search engines you are not going to enjoy the benefits of a high PR. so choose one that is reasonably popular and ones that people actually type.

2. INTEGRATE KEYWORD.

Once the right keywords relevant to your site are chosen, you should now integrate these keywords into your site, placing very special attention to places where Search Engines look.

Website URL:

It is very important that you have at least one of the important keywords in the URL.This will help the search engine to understand what your site is all about.

Page Title:

To improve page rank the page title is another important place to integrate your keywords. Since this too gives an indication to the search engine useful information about your site. Though most sites use the same title for all the pages, it is better to have different titles with specific keywords integrated into it, reflecting the content in that particular page.

Page Content:

It is a well known fact that the page content or text is most important to search engines. So to improve page rank you should focus all your attention to ensure that the targeted keywords are well represented in your content. Unless these keywords appear in the text your chances of obtaining a good page rank will be remote.
In addition to having your keywords in the text of the page three very important criteria should also be adhered to, which is very often overlooked by most webmasters.

a. Use keywords frequently but do not stuff your page with keywords. Search Engines do not approve keyword stuffing.

b. Place your keywords close to each other. This helps the the search engines.

c. Place the keywords near the top of your page in the page content.

3. OBTAIN LINKS FROM OTHER SITES.

To improve search engine rank another important thing you should do is to get other sites to link to you, because the number of links, linking to your site is a measure of popularity. Most search engines consider link popularity as the most important factor in deciding the relevance of a site.
It becomes obvious that you should put in a lot of effort to get as many sites as possible to link to you.

If it is a new site get a link from a website that has already been listed in search engines.

Search Engines look at not only the number of sites that link to you but also the quality of the sites that link to you. In other words a link from a popular and relevenant P7 site is much better than several links from smaller sites. Hence quality is considered more important than quantity. A judicious mix of quality and quantity will help improve search engine rank.

4. META TAG:

It is an embedded HTML tag that contains descriptive information, keywords and other information about a web page and does not appear when the web page is displayed in a browser.
There was a time when search engines relied on Meta tags to assess the site’s relevance and rank them. Most Search Engines no longer rely on meta tags since they have developed new systems for this purpose. Nevertheless it is advisable to have them to improve search engine rank.

5. ALT TAG:

Another important aspect that is often overlooked is the importance of ALT tags. Search Engines don’t index images. They can’t read them; so to fix this problem there are ALT tags which are descriptions of images that are recognized by search engines. So to get the search engines to recognize the images on your site, ALT tags with keywords can be used which will in turn help you to improve your rank in search engines.

Finally a word of advice, do not try to trick the search engines by using unaccecptable techniques becuse it will not pay in the long run and you could get penalised. By following these methods you will succeed in your attempt to improve search engine rank yourself and be happy and proud of your achievement. Advice from a Specialist will certainly be of help if your intention is to reach the top.

Copyright © 2005 Kanaga Siva.

Kanaga Siva has a wealth of experience in Marketing and also running a Home Based Business. He now operates his Internet Marketing Business. Visit his website Free Home Based Business for Articles, Resources, Ideas and Advise to start a Home Based Business and enroll for his Free Newsletter.

If you’re having a problem finding items to sell on eBay, you might want to consider a strategy called consignment selling. In fact, eBay says that selling goods for others, consignment selling, is the fastest-growing business segment on eBay. Over 80,000 sellers have registered for eBay’s trading assistant program.

Consignment selling is a fancy way of saying that you sell other people’s goods and then take a percentage of the selling price - or commission — for you efforts.

Your responsibilities

Your responsibilities as a consignment seller include photographing the items to be sold, writing descriptions of the items, setting up the auctions, handling the bookkeeping and then packing and shipping everything that sells.

How to become a successful consignment seller

The first thing you should so is sign up for the eBay Trading Assistant. Program (http://pages.ebay.com/tahub/index.html) as it offers a number of good benefits, including access to eBay’s marketing and education resources.

Next, you will need to find items to sell. I assume that you already know how to sell on eBay. If you don’t, you will want to get some practical experience selling your own items before attempting to sell goods belonging to others. This is probably the most challenging part of becoming a successful consignment seller.

Finding products to sell

The first and easiest way to find products is to network with friends and family members. However, before you do this, you will need to create a fee schedule of how much of a commission you will charge for selling various items.

A second inexpensive way is to print and distribute flyers throughout your area. Many grocery stores will allow you to post flyers as will some other retailers such as dry cleaners, laundromats, book stores, senior centers, and the like.

Another, not too expensive way, to get the message out is with a classified ad in your local newspaper, your neighborhood newspaer or a meighborhood “shopper.” Also, you might try to contact homeowners the day before their or garage sales to see if they have items you could sell on eBay — for more than they would be able to get from their own sale.

So, if you’re goal is to sell successfully on eBay and you’ve having a problem finding items to sell, try consignment selling. It could be great.

Here’s something else that’s great. Plan to vacation this year in Denver. A Denver vacation offers the best of both worlds. It has all the the fun things to see and do you find only in a big, bustling city and it’s only minutes away from the spectacular scenary and vistas offered by our nearby Rocky Mountains. For more information on a great Denver vacation, just go to http://www.best-denver-vacation.com

Douglas Hanna has lived in the Denver metro area for more than 30 years and is an expert on both Denver and Colorado. He is also the author of more than 100 ezine articles on a variety of subjects.

THE REALITIES OF AN INTERNET BUSINESS

Millions of people are still coming online each year, and many of
those people come to the Internet with dreams of making their
financial dreams come true.

The truth is that building a website to sell products and
services is not the easiest way to make a living online. A lot of
specific knowledge or money will be required to be successful
with a standard website.

You must acquire skills — or pay someone who already possesses
those skills — in the following areas:

* Graphic design
* Copywriting
* HTML design
* Perl or PHP programming
* Database programming
* Marketing research
* Promotions

When this is understood, most people throw their hands up in
frustration and walk away from their entrepreneurial desires.

Maybe cash is the problem; maybe the desire is just lacking.

If you have reached this point yourself let me offer one piece of
advice…

DON’T THROW AWAY YOUR DREAMS JUST YET

More people than I can count are making a successful living
online, and none of them own their own website or send a single
commercial email to anyone.

How is this possible?

Two words, “Ebay auctions.”

EBAY MAKES IT EASY

Ebay covers all of the difficult technical issues. And more
importantly, Ebay already has floods of visitors eager to
purchase your wares.

Ebay has provided everything you need to operate a successful
business online with three exceptions:

1. Products to sell
2. Time to list the products in the Ebay database
3. Cash to acquire the products

CHOOSING THE KINDS OF PRODUCTS

Before choosing your products, you should ask yourself what you
enjoy the most. You may enjoy cats, NASCAR or even antiques. You
should select products consistent with what you enjoy for two
reasons.

First, you bring to your presentation a real appreciation for the
products your are offering.

Secondly, a job you hate is one you will quit. A job you enjoy
doing will be one that you will want to keep forever. If you are
starting your own business, the hope is that you will be doing it
for a very long time.

I personally know people who have generated a nice living on Ebay
selling cat-related items, NASCAR memorabilia and antiques.

FINDING THE ACTUAL PRODUCTS TO SELL

I recommend against diving in and spending thousands of dollars
buying products that you may or may not be able to sell.

A drop-shipper is a middleman who is willing to permit you to buy
an individual product, and then they will put your business name
on the return address of the product package and handle the
actual delivery for you.

By utilizing a drop-shipper, you can speed product delivery to
the client without risking your own cash to keep a product in
inventory.

If you are lost as to how to find a drop-shipper, consider
subscribing to the drop-shippers directory found on our site.

Through this site, you can get all of the information you need to
find drop-shippers from which you can order over 500,000 products
from over 1,000 brand names.

LEARNING TO LIST YOUR PRODUCTS AT EBAY

Learning to use Ebay is pretty easy and straightforward. Ebay has
put forward a lot of effort to help people to become successful.
For example, Ebay has an entire area of their site devoted to the
online entrepreneur.

To get an overview of all of the services and tools that Ebay
provides to sellers, you may visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/services/index.html

Ebay also delivers courses and strategies to help you to be more
successful:

http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/index.html

THE IMPORTANCE OF CASH FLOW TO YOUR SUCCESS

Ebay provides tools for both buyers and sellers to rate one
another. The speed of delivery is one of the most important
factors that sellers are rated on. By providing quick delivery,
your buyers will give you a good rating — and more shoppers
will bid on your products.

Ebay recently purchased PayPal.com to help facilitate purchases
for their buyers and sellers, and they have integrated the two
systems together.

Unfortunately, getting the money from your PayPal account to your
personal account generally takes four days. Even with a merchant
account, the time gap is nearly the same. This time gap expands
the turn-around between the transaction and delivery of the
product unless you take action to speed the process.

If you were doing high volume, you would want to minimize the
handling of a transaction to reduce the chance for a foul-up and
to increase your ratings within the Ebay system.

But how can this be accomplished?

MANAGING CASH FLOW

While you could rely upon credit cards to get the job done, it is
not something I would recommend. Paying credit card interest
rates to process your customer’s purchase, is an unnecessary
burden.

Instead, put a sum of money into a dedicated bank account with a
debit card attached to it. When you verify a transaction has been
credited to your PayPal account, then use your debit card to
immediately process the order with your drop-shipper.

But, how can you do it this way on a tight budget?

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO THE RESCUE

Let me ask you this. Do you have a 401(k) account?

Experts advise that you not touch your retirement savings for
anything other than retirement income. That is good advice.
Fortunately, it is possible under special circumstances to
acquire loans against your 401(k) accounts.

Beginning in 2002, even the self-employed small business owner
with no employees could open his or her own 401(k), called a
solo-owner 401(k), and borrow from it just as employees with big
companies can.

Weigh this option against the others available to you. It only
makes sense to take out a loan rather than to take a hit in heavy
taxes and penalties for drawing your retirement money early.
Seriously, consider taking advantage of our historically low
interest rates to meet your cash flow needs.

To learn more about creating and borrowing from a solo-owner
401(k), please visit:

http://www.investsafe.com

IN CONCLUSION

It is wise to choose your new business venture based on a model
that has proven itself over the long-term. Ebay has been proving
its concept since 1995; helping thousands of people build a
successful and very profitable business.

The time to act is now. Choose the product line that will give
you the most satisfaction and then get busy. Your success awaits
you.

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved. Reprints allowed with article and resource box unedited. If you post this article on a website, you must set the links up as hyperlinks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

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  it might be time to consider our “Links And Traffic” services.

• When you are ready to employ more Natural Linking Strategies in
  increasing your link popularity, “Links And Traffic” can help.

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  click-through traffic, we are here.

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I’m sure you think I’m going to tell you it’s your list…or maybe Big Gun JV partners, or something along those lines. Yes, those are certainly valuable and can help you become incredibly profitable. But that’s not even close to what I am talking about.

The single most important ingredient in Internet Marketing success is “focus”. Focus? “Whoa, John you’re nuts.” Well, that may be, but focus is life or death in this game. Focus is what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and the successes from the wannabe’s.

Internet Marketing often highlights the brilliant successes and rarely speaks to the massive failure of 90+ percent of its business owners. Most of those 90% are basically what I refer to as the churn and burn crowd. Why? Because they don’t focus.

They buy the latest and greatest “thingamajig” or get involved with the next “Super Fabulous Mega Pre-Launch”, go at it for a couple of weeks, don’t see the massive riches they were promised, and move onto the next great thing. Churn and burn.

Although I will agree that the Internet is awash with garbage programs that offer money for nothing; there are many good programs out there as well. And yet people without focus get involved with quality programs, fail, blame the product, and move onto the next one.

Now, I am not in any way taking shots at the focus impaired, because I too am guilty of distractions. In fact, I am probably two steps from ADHD. But I know that I will not win at this game if I do not make a plan, follow the plan, and execute.

Here are some simple little strategies I use to stay on track and keep focused -

1)I make a schedule using Outlook (use whatever calendar you want) and follow it as much as possible. I set appointments and tasks and all that happy jazz and if something comes up which takes precedent over my previously scheduled to-do, I reschedule.

2)I turn off my email for certain periods of the day and shut down my messenger programs. It’s brutal being shut off from the outside world but when I have that stuff open I can get lost for hours…”Oh, I better get back to this email” or “Hey, Jerry’s IM’ing me”. Trust me, step away…it works wonders.

3)This one is more for the visually oriented like me. I keep a notepad next to my laptop and when I complete a task I scratch it off. I know this isn’t very tech friendly in this day and age, but seeing a to-do get scratched off gives me a feeling of accomplishment and motivates me to move on to the next item.

4)When I start one of my to-do’s I do not move to another until I finish; or until I run into a roadblock that forces me to leave it as an open item. Some times things happen and you simply can’t finish what you started at that very moment. But for the lion share of the tasks where this isn’t the case, finish what you start.

5)I limit myself to a certain number of purchases per month. I love toys, gadgets, and new fangled programs that will blast this and submit that…but when I get a new toy I have to go at it immediately, figure it out, and play with it. It costs me hours when something is cool. Those hours could likely be spent making money so it’s best to keep this to a minimum and eliminate the distractions.

This is just a hint at some of the things you can do to keep from getting distracted and staying focused. You have to stay with your programs and see them through. You need to make a plan, implement it, and stick to it. Eliminate your distractions. That kind of focus and determination will allow you to succeed on the Internet in ways you might not even have thought possible.

John Hostler, aka the Internet Renegade, has been marketing successfully both online and off for 6 years. He released his widely anticipated book on the subject of Internet Marketing on 02-01-06. To find out more about John or his newest release check out http://www.internetrenegade.com

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Canadians Are Taking Control!

For Sale By Owner (FSBO) families are saving literally thousands of dollars in real estate commissions when they decide to list their own homes (ie: FSBO), statistics show that it’s probably one of the best ways to go.

As Canadian home sales and prices shatter records, some consumers are wondering why they are paying the traditional commission. Clients in sizzling markets, are asking whether Canadian real estate brokers should earn twice as much, in dollar terms, on a sale as they did five years ago for the same job.

The fact is that web-surfing home buyers are changing how Canadians are buying real estate, and changing the real estate industry. With a flood of information Canadians are becoming much more studious in their real estate buying techniques and starting to chip away at the 6% commissions that Canadian real estate brokers collect off of each home

Is the Internet really that “BIG” in Canada?

In the big picture, world Internet users will top 1 billion in 2005. In Canada, Internet users reached 20,450,000 October of 2004. Doesn’t sound like much? Keep in mind that Canada’s total population is only (32,040,292 )

Chief executive officer of AOL Canada INC - Steve Bartkey stated that twice as many Canadians use the Internet to do their online banking than Americans. The Minister of Nation Revenue - John McCallum states that over 11 million Canadians filed their tax on line in 2004. Just under 1/3 of the Canadian population. Internet buyers, who comprised only 28% of the market in 2000, accounted for 45% of the market in 2002 and may now be in the majority! 78% of home buyers search the Internet before inking up a deal in 2003. That is up from 41% in 2001.

Canadians have come to realize that they cannot continue to throw their equity out the window by giving thousands of their hard earned dollars to agents. For a majority of Canadian citizens their homes are their families largest assets Simply put “For Sale By Owners” AKA “FSBO” are making great money managing decisions, It puts you in control of one of your largest assets, and Its where the real estate market is going with today’s technology.

Here are a few more reasons “FSBO” Makes Sense!

SAVINGS BASED ON 6% COMMISSION

• $50,000 ~ $3000.00
• $100,000.00 ~ $6000.00
• $150,000.00 ~ $9000.00
• $300,000.00 ~ $18,000.00
• $500,000.00 ~ $30,000.00

About the author

Colleen Alderliesten is the webmaster and site owner of http://www.canadianhomes4sale.com She has been buying and selling real estate in British Columbia, Canada for over 20 years. She decided to create a “For Sale By Owner” real estate advertising site when she recognized that there was a need for quality sites of this kind in Canada. http://www.canadianhomes4sale.com is ranked in the top 5 sites by Yahoo, Google, and MSN.

Are you using search engine optimization tactics that lead to SEO overkill? You may not think so, but according to several SEO experts at the Search Engine Strategies conference held recently in Chicago, Illinois, you might be using what is called “SEO Overkill”. Michael Murray from Fathom SEO, Matt Bailey from the Karcher Group, and Heather Lloyd-Martin from SearchEngineWriting.com all discussed SEO Overkill.

According to Mark Murray Fathom SEO (www.fathomseo.com), SEO is not a shopping spree. You need website traffic, but you need to pace yourself—even sound practices may fail if they’re rushed. When picking a domain name, short domain names are easy to read—if you use multiple hyphens or forced capitalization, it looks like spam and visitors are immediately suspicious of your website. And when it comes to search engine optimization, you need to pick your priorities—don’t manage too many keywords at once.

Mr. Murray goes on to say that it’s easy to have folder and page name “excess”. Using too many keywords or repeated keywords in your domain name, folder name, and page name (or file name) can lead to disaster. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that they match the content—but don’t go overboard with it. Limit you repetition of keywords in the domain name, folder names, and page names. Although having those keywords in the URL can help rankings, don’t overdo it.

Title tags are important, according to Mr. Murray. It’s important to tame your title tag, especially because long title tags are useless. “It’s important to pick one or two search terms and call it a day” when you’re writing title tags. Meta description tags are needed as well, but “don’t have meta description overload”, says Mr. Murray. “The description tag still counts…but you need to avoid long descriptions.” The meta description tag still shows up in the search engine results, so optimize your meta description not only for the search engines but for your website visitors—you need a good description to lure people to click on your web site’s listing so they visit your site. The meta keywords tag is a hard tag not to include, but some search engines downplay this tag due to past abuses. It’s good to limit your meta keywords tag to a few keywords - again, don’t overload your meta keywords tag with a lot of useless keywords. When it comes to other meta tags (other than the meta description and keywords tag), you can go ahead and skip them—according to Mr. Murray, “they do little for search engines…why spend the time and potentially mess with density issues?”

Other issues that Mr. Murray talked about were issues such as overdone visible text. “Massive keyword repetition in a small space may annoy site visitors…it looks blatant.” Heading tags are commonly misused, as well. “Don’t overstuff and avoid misuse. Complement the design and don’t ignore the overall look and feel of your site.”

According to Heather Lloyd-Martin from SearchEngineWriting.com, SEO overkill is where good content can go bad. Title tags can get overstuffed quickly. Remember that the SERPs (search engine results) page is the first opportunity for conversion. Your title should be hot and compelling. It’s important to make your title clickable and reflect the content on the page. Stuffed title tags are more than spammy–they provide a bad first impression and inhibit click-throughs. Think of your conversion and your customers first. Searchers won’t click on your search engine listing if they see a spammy or undesirable title. “It’s one thing to create headlines that grab attention…it’s another when it has nothing to do with the ad”, says Heather Lloyd-Martin. “Titles and content can be creative, but please make the content relevant - and hit the pain points of your client.”

“Don’t be a linkarama loser”, says Ms. Lloyd-Martin. “Lots of links isn’t helpful for seo or for customers - it’s confusing. Too many links on a page will overwhelm your reader - and they won’t know how to take action. Focus on your most important page links, and promote those on the page. Think about the rule of three and use those links to pre-qualify powerful landing pages.” She goes on to say that you need to avoid what she calls “conversion confusion”. “Many pages include a lot of text on the page and have a lot of good content and talk about the product a lot. But there’s no conversion step or way for people to take action. People need to be told what to do. If you do not ask for the sale, they won’t take action.” What action do you want your customers to take? How easy is it to take that action? Don’t rely on a “contact us” button or “contact us” in the footer navigation. When you create landing pages, it’s important to give the visitor an action they can take as well as an incentive for taking that action.

Bad misspellings are something you want to avoid. According to Heather Lloyd-Martin, “misspellings are a myth…customers will notice misspellings pretty easily…which makes your company look unprofessional, like you can’t spell, and like you don’t care.” She goes on to say that “if they can’t get their site right, why can they get my order right?” Don’t trash you brand with misspellings.

Matt Bailey from the Karcher Group says that it’s important to realize how readers scan a web page. According to Jakob Nielsen, 79 percent of users scan a web page. 16 percent read the page’s copy word for word. When creating a web page and trying to avoid SEO overkill, you need to realize that screen reader users scan by listening. Mr. Bailey explains that they “listen to the first few words on the page”. It’s important to also be aware that “mobile devices and cell phones ignore hidden text, stuffed alt attributes, hidden z-layers—they’re all visible in PDAs and to screen readers. Some people turn off images on their phones when they’re browsing the web to save bandwidth.” If you overstuff your web pages with useless content and stuff your web pages with useless keywords the screen reader users, as well as people using mobile devices will not be happy with your web pages—they’ll leave right away.

Well-designed pages and content equal credibility. According to Mr. Bailey, there was a study done by the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab. “Participants made credibility-based decisions…based upon the site’s overall visual appeal.” They base the credibility on the site design. Typically, consumers assess the credibility of web sites based on the overall visual design of a site, specifically noting layout, typography, font size, and color schemes.

Mr. Bailey says that when it comes to over optimization, “you have two choices–write for search engines or write for conversions…there is an over-optimization penalty. Do things in moderation. You need to write for conversions, not the search engines.”

Bill Hartzer manages the Internet Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas.

Hartzer has infused MarketNet with his enthusiasm and vision for search marketing. Bill Hartzer is focused on developing results-oriented paid and organic search marketing programs to help clients increase visibility, broaden reach and maximize their return on investment.

Without a doubt one of the biggest things to hit the Internet today is the amount of SEO “Search Engine Optimization” sites popping up all over the place. Even “Web Hosts” are now advertising to SEO your site for a fixed fee who you might be hosted with. It really does seem to be the hottest internet craze and many people cashing in on the rush to create new forms of SEO software to sell!!!

So why is SEO so important?

Let’s say you running a site about CARS and your trying to get new members to come and join. Your faced with a big problem, there are also hundreds if not thousands of other CAR sites out as well - all fighting to get new members. So any tool you can use to point new users to your site first by ranking it high in search engines like Google etc is a big plus factor for your sites future growth (even more so if your selling a product).

So what does SEO do to help me?

What SEO does in a nutshell is convert all your web or forum pages into much more user friendly links, which in turn can then be indexed by search engines much easier and faster. Which means they will get ranked higher along with many more pages listed.

The benefits of this are quite obvious: The more pages you have indexed in search engines, along with a higher rank. Means your going to bring many more users to your site. Which in turn can be converted into more members joining your site faster than if you didn’t use SEO. Simple case of mathermatics.

Will it cost me money to SEO my site?

Well the short answer to this is: Yes and No.

There are many guides out there on the internet which can be found quite easy using Google as a search tool to find them, that will explain how you can SEO your site yourself “DIY”. There are also paid products out there that can make this easy for you (designed for certain forum boards like “vBSEO” is for use with vBulletin forum boards).

Which route you take depends on your knowledge of being able to understand how it all works and make the code changes yourself accordingly. If your a novice, off course you can always just buy a product and make things easy for yourself.

Are there any disadvantages of using SEO?

The only thing you need to remember is that nothing last forever - other sites are also choosing to SEO there sites also just like you. And over time this will effect your ranking as more and more sites go the same SEO way. So while in the short term you might be impressed with the results. Over time as more sites get SEO’d, this will have an adverse effect on your site in general as there sites begin to take advantage of a higher rank with more pages listed in search engines.

GB Chat

It seems you can’t drive far without seeing a home that is listed for sale by owner. Selling a home without the assistance of a realtor is probably today’s hottest trend in the real estate market. If you know anything about selling, you know that one of the most important components of success is to get the product out in front of as many prospective buyers as possible. This type of product placement is critical even when the product being sold is a home. Realtors typically take care of this type of exposure. But when you make the decision to put your home on the market as for sale by owner, this task falls into your lap.

Sure, lots of people driving by your home will notice that bright red FSBO sign out in your front yard. But these people might not be in the market for a new home. A few will know others who are, and they’ll spread the word about what they saw, but if you plan to sell your home anytime soon, you’ll need more prospective buyers than this.

What other choices do you have for advertising your for sale by owner home? You can run an ad in the local newspaper and this will bring out a few more buyers. You can have one of those pretty flyers printed up and you can stuff them into the tube below the “for sale” sign, but again, only those driving by are likely to see this flyer. You can make up cards and hang them on community bulletin boards located inside grocery stores and public buildings, but this likely will be a waste of time and effort.

There’s another way that’s been proven to be effective and that entails listing your home on the Internet. Think this is overkill? You wouldn’t be alone in this way of thinking. But you also wouldn’t be right, either. The Internet will give your home the nation-wide exposure it needs to generate a fast sale. In fact, many of the web sites dedicated to selling homes specialize in listing only for sale by owner homes, like the one offered at http://www.fiftystatesfsbo.com.

Nowadays, everybody uses the Internet to search for information and they’re using this powerful tool to purchase new homes. Don’t you think it’s time to get your for sale by owner home listed on the Internet?

Brian Shelton makes it easy to sell your house fast. To claim your free report entitled “How To Sell Your House In 7 Days or Less“, visit the
http://www.HouseSoldIn7Days.com/

Someone asked me recently, if I were to expand an existing professional services business onto the internet, what marketing steps would I take first: set up a web site, a shopping cart, a newsletter, or a blog?

This is a very good question. Five years ago most Internet marketing specialists would have all responded in chorus, “A website, of course!” Then they would recommend their services to create an elaborate website with lots of bells and whistles.

I had an interesting email this week from a reader who asked me about website design fees. This is not my area of expertise. But this reader is a very smart guy. Why? Because he knows from my ezines, blogs and web site that I’ve been online for a few years and making a decent living from it.

He’s a rabbi who has many years experience counseling people. He now has made a wise decision to start offering coaching services to people, and wants to leverage the internet to find clients, sell ebooks and other programs.

The First Step - Ask Questions

He has many questions about what to do first, where to invest his marketing dollars, and how to get set up so everything works seamlessly and automatically.

While I don’t profess to have all the answers to his particular questions, I want to emphasize what’s important here. He is asking questions!

Many people just go with their gut or common sense. It goes something like this:

“I need a way to find people online. Ergo, I need a web site. Who can do a web site for me, that doesn’t cost too much? Oh, you can? Only $1000. Okay, that seems reasonable. Do it.”

It’s only later on down the road when they want to start an ezine, or a blog, or sell an ebook that they realize they need more than just a web site. That’s when the web designer kicks in with hourly fees.

I’ve never heard a programmer say they can’t do something. They always say they can easily set up autoresponders, gather email addresses, send out a newsletter, create a blog on your site, and even create a secure payment system for sales. I’m sorry, but here’s the real news: programmers and web site designers can do all these tasks with your web site, but they will charge you for it, and it still won’t do everything automatically. And you will be tied to their hourly fees (and schedule) forever.

Back to the question asked of me at the beginning of this article.

While my partner and I recommend an all-in-one solution and setting up all the elements together if your budget permits, there are a couple of ways to get started.

Unless you have a database of prospects, you will not sell your services or products. Therefore, we recommend getting started the right way by building your database — by offering an ezine or free content to attract people to your business. And, you need a place on the Internet where people can find you and subscribe to your content.

The first two pieces then, especially if you’re just starting out and have a limited budget, are a blog and a shopping cart program with an autoresponder system.

Third Party Shopping Cart Systems

A third party shopping cart system is where you get an account hosted online by a company that specializes in providing automated database management, autoresponders, email broadcasting, online merchant credit card and payments, ad tracking, and affiliate programs.

When you start out, all you need to do is deliver your ezine and automated emails through autoresponders. You can get a basic level shopping cart account. As your business grows and you develop products, you can upgrade to get more features on your shopping cart, such as affiliate program management and digital delivery.

There are many online email broadcasting services to manage your newsletter. But be aware that an all-in-one solution such as a shopping cart program will save you time and money in the long run.

We strongly recommend starting off with a shopping cart program that can manage your database and newsletters under one roof. It is better to have all your automated marketing functions with one service provider, than to separate your database and newsletter out to another external email service provider.

For detailed information and questions to ask about how to pick a shopping cart system, there are a series of articles you can review at our website.

What’s next?

You have your shopping cart system, now what? We’ll explore the issue of websites vs. blogs in our next article.

As the The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman have teamed up to work with professionals to maximize their marketing strategies by implementing blogs, ezines and ecommerce tactics. They are co-authors of “Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide for Boosting Your Business with a Professional Blog”,” Confessions of a Reluctant Blogger: From Boring to Brilliant in 30 Days” and “Secrets of Successful Ezines: A Guide to Writing and Publishing an Ezine that Gets Results.” Are you ready for a blog? Take The Blog Squad’s free assessment at http://www.snipurl.com/Ezine_Blog