Home Business The Easy Way - BBi Update http://www.blogmoneymiracle.com en-us EasyRSS
by Phillip Davis

Naming a business is like laying the cornerstone of a building. Once it's in place, the entire foundation and structure is aligned to that original stone. If it's off, the rest of the building is off, and the misalignment becomes amplified.

If you have that gnawing sense that choosing a name for your new business is vitally important - you're right. With 18 years in the naming and branding business, I've witnessed the good, the bad, and the really bad.

Here's how you can avoid the worst of the mistakes and get off to a good start.

Mistake 1: The Committee (Getting all your clients, employees and family members involved)

We live in a democratic society and it seems like the right thing to do - involving everyone in an important decision. This approach, however, presents a few problems. The first and most obvious fact is that you will end up choosing only one name - so you risk alienating the very people you are trying to involve. Second, you often end up with a consensus decision, resulting in a very safe and very vanilla name.

A better method is to involve only the key decision makers, the fewer the better, and select only the people you feel have the company's best interests at heart. The need for personal recognition can skew results - so you are best served by those who can park their egos at the door. Also, make sure you have some right brain types in the mix. Too many left brains and the name often ends up too literal and descriptive.

Mistake 2: The Train Wreck (Taking two words and colliding them head on)

When forced to come up with a creative name, many aspiring entrepreneurs will simply take part of an adjective and weld it onto a noun. The results are names that have a certain twisted rationale to them, but look and sound awful. Someone starting a high-end service franchise then becomes QualiServe.

It's a bit like mixing chocolate syrup with ketchup - nothing wrong with either, but they just don't go together. Other common truncations include Ameri, Tech, Corp, Tron, etc. The problem with this approach is that it's forced and it sounds that way.

Mistake 3: Where's Waldo? (Names so plain they'll never stand out in a crowd)

The first company in a category can get away with this one. Hence, you have General Motors, General Electric, etc. But, once you have competition, it requires differentiation.

Imagine if Yahoo! had come out as GeneralInternetDirectory.com? It would be much more descriptive, but hardly memorable. And with the onslaught of new media and advertising channels, it's more important than ever to carve out your niche by displaying your uniqueness. Nothing does that better than a well-conceived name.

Mistake 4: The Atlas Approach (Using a map to name your company)

In the zeal to start a new company, many businesses choose to use their city, state or region as part of their name. While this may actually help in the beginning, it often becomes a hindrance as a company grows.

One client came to me with complaints he was serving more of the market than his name implied. He had aptly called it St. Pete Plumbing since he hailed from St. Petersburg, Florida. But yellow page shoppers assumed that was also his entire service area. With a little creative tinkering we changed the image of St. Pete from a city to the image of St. Pete himself, complete with wings and a plumber's wrench. The new tag line? "We work miracles!"

Other companies have struggled with the same issue. Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining was growing beyond their industry and their state. To avoid limiting their growth they became 3M, a company now known for innovation. Kentucky Fried Chicken is now KFC, de-emphasizing the regional nature of the original name. Both of these companies made strategic moves to avoid stifling their growth. Learn from them and you can avoid this potential bottleneck.

Mistake 5: Cliche' You Say? (A good name is worth a thousand words)

Once past the literal, descriptive stage, the thought process usually turns to metaphors. These can be great if they are not overly used to the point of sounding trite. Since many companies think of themselves as the top in their industry, the world is full of names like Summit, Apex, Pinnacle, Peak, etc. While there is nothing inherently wrong with these names, they are just overworked.

Look for combinations of positive words and metaphors and you will be much better served. A good example is the Fortune 1000 data storage company Iron Mountain, which conveys strength and security without sounding commonplace.

Mistake 6: Hide the Meaning (Make it so obscure, the customer will never know!)

It's great for a name to have a special meaning or significance. It sets up a story that can be used to tell the company message. But, if the reference is too obscure and too hard to spell and pronounce, you may never have the opportunity to speak to that customer. They will simply pass you by as irrelevant.

Resist the urge to name your company after the mythical Greek god of fast service or the Latin phrase for "We're number one!" If a name has a natural, intuitive sound and a special meaning, it can work. If it's too complex and puzzling, it will remain a mystery to your customers. This is especially true if you are reaching out to a mass audience.

I pushed the envelope a little on this one myself, naming my branding firm Tungsten, after the metal that Thomas Edison used to create brilliant light. However, my clientele consists of knowledgeable professionals who appreciate a good metaphor and expect a branding firm to have a story behind its name. It's also a way to differentiate my services (illuminated, bright, brilliant). So, while it works for a branding firm, it would not do well as an ice cream parlor.

Mistake 7: The Campbell's Approach (Using alphabet soup to name your firm)

This is a trend that is thankfully wearing off. Driven by the need for a matching domain name, many companies have resorted to awkwardly constructed or purposefully misspelled names. The results are company names that sound more like prescription drugs than real life businesses. Mistake 2 sometimes gets combined with this one and results in a name like KwaliTronix (or worse - mistakes 2, 4 ... 7, resulting in KwalTronixUSA).

It's amazing how good some names begin to sound after searching for available domain names all night. But resist the urge. Avoid using a "K" in place of a "Q" or a "Ph" in place of an "F." This makes spelling the name and locating you on the Internet all that much harder.

It's not that coined or invented names cannot work; they often do. Take, for example, Xerox or Kodak. But, keep it mind, names like these have no intrinsic or linguistic meaning, so they rely heavily on advertising and that gets expensive.

Many of the companies that use this approach were either first in category or had large marketing budgets. Verizon spent millions on their rebranding effort. So did Accenture. Check your pocketbook before you look into these types of names.

Mistake 8: Sit On It. (When in doubt, make no change at all)

Many business owners know they have a problem with their name and just hope it will somehow magically resolve itself. The original name for one of my clients was "Portables," which reminded some people of the outdoor restrooms or the portable classrooms - neither one a good association. This added to the confusion when phone operators tried to explain their new concept of moving and storage. After some careful tweaking, we came up with the name PODS, an acronym for Portable On Demand Storage. The rest is quickly becoming history as they expand both nationally and internationally.

Peter Warhust, President and one of the original founders states, "For the record, changing our name to PODS was one of the best moves we ever made."

Exercise Experience, a former Florida-based company, was frequently confused with a health club. In reality, they sold very high-end fitness equipment. This brings up a very key point - it's better to have a name that gives no impression than a name that gives a wrong impression. Much of the ad budget we spent on Exercise Experience was used to clarify that they sold fitness equipment. This was valuable airtime that could have been put to better use selling the equipment rather than explaining the business. Ultimately, the company folded. It's not to say it was solely because of the name, but I believe it was a factor.

Mike Harper of Huntington Beach, CA, bought a thirty-year-old janitorial and building maintenance company named Regency. We both agreed it sounded more like a downtown movie theatre than a progressive facilities management firm. After a thorough naming search, we developed the name Spruce Facilities Management. Spruce not only conveyed the environmentally friendly image of a spruce tree (something important to the client), it also meant, "to clean up." The new tag line fell right in place: Spruce "The Everclean Company."

It's only a matter of time before Southwest Airlines and Burlington Coat Factory and others who have successfully outgrown their original markets begin to question their positioning. Much like 3M and KFC, they may need to make a change to keep pace with their growth and image.

In the fever to start your new business or expand a current one, take time to think through some of these issues. According to the late Henry Ford, "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." Albert Einstein took it one step further claiming, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

By tapping into your creativity and avoiding these potential pitfalls, you'll be able to create a name that works both short- and long-term - one that allows for future growth.

Like the original cornerstone of a building, it will support upward expansion as your company reaches new heights.

Phil Davis is President of Tungsten Brilliant Brand Marketing. Phil’s life goal of "creating environments where people thrive" reflects his desire to assist in personal, professional and business growth. Phil founded and ran a full service ad agency for over 17 years and now works full time as a business naming and branding consultant. Phil resides with wife Michelle and four energetic offspring outside Asheville, North Carolina. Website: http://PureTungsten.com Email: Phil@PureTungsten.com

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by Kelly McCausey

If you are a mom and thinking about working from home, be sure to ask yourself these questions.

I've realized over recent months that moms rarely do enough soul searching and research before jumping into a home business. To help you dig deep and give this the careful consideration that it deserves, I have three 'must ask questions' for you.

Before you make a decision, especially before you spend any money on an idea – sit down with a pad of paper and do some journaling on each question. Then, if you're married, take these questions and your thoughts to your husband and talk about all of it.

Have you walked through these common-sense steps?

Common sense dictates that you have a business plan. I'll admit to you that I never had a business plan when I started – but I do have a plan today that shapes my decisions and how I spend my time.

Common sense would say that you need to have a budget and a financial plan for your income.

Common sense would also demand that you research your business idea fully. Talk to others who are doing what you want to do and ask them pointed questions about how long it took them to get established and make a profit. Do not just ask those who are new to the business, seek out those who have been in business for at least four or five years. You need their perspective.

If the business that you're considering is in direct sales – have you tried things out as a hostess first? I've talked with women three months down the road who are disillusioned and regretful about their decision to join a particular company and, when I ask them if they started out by hosting a party and seeing if they enjoyed that experience first – they have all said "no." That tells me that testing the waters as a consumer is key.

Are you sure you can handle being your own boss? I know a lot of great hard-working people who would be in big trouble if they were in charge of themselves day-in and day-out.

It's important to know your quirks. Working at home may seem like a long vacation at first but, after a while, the polish wears off and it's just work again.

Are you self-motivated? Do you set good goals and keep on-task without someone else holding you accountable? If you're not entirely sure – ask the people that you've worked with what they think.

How will this business affect your kids, your marriage and your home?

This is huge. Working at home means different things to different people. If you're going to start a business to earn a little extra grocery money, you might not be looking at something that will create big waves in your home life. But, if you're looking to replace a full-time income, you have to be aware of the impact that your business will have on the home.

If your business involves physical products – where will they be stored and who will be taking care of them, moving them, shipping them? Don't assume that your husband and kids will automatically love to lift your boxes all the time.

If your business requires you to be gone from the home a lot, who will pick up the slack for you? Who will watch the kids? Who will prepare family meals?

It's easier than ever before to create a business from home that doesn't involve products or time away – but even a virtual business requires your time and attention. When will you work and who will that time be taken away from?

Don't fool yourself into believing that you can run a full-time business during nap time or only while the kids are at school.

If you can work your way through each of these questions you'll be well-equipped to make the best decision possible about your home business.

Kelly McCausey has hosted Work at Home Moms Talk Radio since November of 2003. As an Internet-based business coach, she helps other moms build profitable businesses that let them keep their family number one. Listen online any time at http://www.wahmtalkradio.com

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by Laurie Hayes

One of the most powerful words that can help you save time, increase productivity, feel better about yourself and reach your goals faster and easier is only two letters long! The problem is, it’s almost the most difficult word to use.

Discover how to put this little powerhouse to work for you without guilt or fear.

A common characteristic shared by successful home business owners is the steadfast, almost fanatical way in which they guard their time.

Large corporations and businesses hire people and spread the responsibilities and, although I highly urge you to leverage your time by surrounding yourself with people who will take care of lower return activities, there is still no escaping the many interruptions and distractions that are a part of home business life.

People who play at the top of their game, whether in business, sport or life, have learned how to either eliminate or reduce distractions by mastering the use of one simple word ... "No."

The inability and fear around using these two little letters has caused more home business failures, tears, stress, frustration and relationship troubles than any other.

And, although many new home business owners insist their greatest weaknesses are lack of marketing and sales skills, the biggest obstacle that is blocking their ability to develop these skills is the fact they are not saying "no" to time-robbing activities, so they can focus on building and growing.

Lack of time is the number one challenge every one of my clients brings to the table when we begin working together.

Learn to say "no" to doing everything yourself.

Oftentimes I'll hear, "But I'm in start-up, I have to guard my spending," and I respond with, "You can't save yourself into profitability. You have to focus on making money."

This mental block will never allow you to grow, especially at an accelerated rate.

Low pay-off activities can be delegated, bartered, given to volunteers, students and family members. Do some creative brainstorming with your coach, mastermind group or trusted colleague.

Learn to say "no" to the demands of daily living.

How many times have you said "yes" to the following, even though you either didn't want to or knew it would take you away from your own priorities?

- taking care of your neighbor's kids after school because she had a hair appointment

- volunteering to cover the refreshments table at your child's high school dance

- loaning out equipment or items you know you won't get back unless you ask for them several times

- agreeing to listen to your friend rant for the third time this week about how his wife is trying to ruin him in a nasty divorce battle

- taking your mom to visit her friend across town every week because your brother and sister are too busy

- making Johnny and Sally's beds because they have to rush to school in the morning and don't have time

- going to every birthday and holiday dinner a family member hosts

- reading every single e-mail and taking every single call that comes in ...

By not saying "no" to the hundreds of non-critical demands that are placed on you every month, you will not create the business success or freedom you want and deserve.

The two biggest obstacles in mastering the skill of saying "no" are fear and guilt.

Fear that you will be loved less or rejected and feeling guilty that you may have hurt someone's feelings.

Saying "no" doesn't have to hurt anyone or cause you to be rejected and the way you deliver the message can make all the difference for you.

To refuse a request, be honest and assertive in your reply by stating, "I'm sorry, however I have to turn down your offer/request at this time because I've been so busy with obligations, I've neglected my own priorities and have to give them my attention right now."

If others get angry with you or try to make you feel guilty for wanting to give yourself the attention you deserve, it's time to decide whether or not they're the kind of people you want in your life.

Start small. Build your "no" muscle slow and easy and work your way up to the larger demands. Like any skill, you can develop it, and once you become a master, you'll enjoy quantum leaps in your happiness levels and business success.

2007 © Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source

Laurie Hayes, founder and Director of The HBB Source, helps freedom seekers cross the bridge from employee to home-based entrepreneur. Subscribe to her FREE E-zine for valuable tips and resources designed to create business success, at http://www.thehbbsource.com

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by Adam Terebeckij

I have often mentioned the need for balance between your family life and your business. This is a little bit trickier proposition for work-at-home parents, particularly those who have little ones pattering about.

But, there is some also benefit to working around and along with the little ones. The first of these major benefits is the fact that they force you to take breaks, whether you think you want one or not.

For most of us, it is difficult to get into our work first thing in the morning and, if we don't have an outstanding amount of self-discipline, we often find ourselves hurrying later to catch up on things that we got behind on during the early morning hours.

In these situations, taking a break to put Polly Pocket's dress on for the thousandth time, or fixing yet another glass of juice, might seem like a profound interruption to your work flow. However, if you take a moment to think about why you wanted to work from home, wasn't there something about this in that thought?

More important, however, taking short breaks throughout the day provides a renewal of energy and purpose and gives your child special memories that other children aren't quite so fortunate to have.

Second, the little ones (believe it or not) will help drive your schedule. If you are planning around lunchtime, snack time, nap time, etc., and have set times for these each day, you are mentally preparing for those times and working according to what needs to be done before that time.

It's like a mental turbo boost for your productivity. I don't know about your children, but my children are very quick to let me know it's lunch time, snack time, and -- goodness knows -- it's obvious if I'm late for nap time!

Third, having little ones at home with you while you work can be the most motivation possible to succeed. Knowing that, while you are busy for a large chunk of the day, you are still the one that is there to change the diapers, kiss the boo-boos, and soothe the heartaches of your little one, and not some day care provider in your stead, is one of the most priceless things you can imagine.

I didn't know how much it was going to effect me or how much I was going to love it until I was actually able to do it for myself. And, to be completely honest, I wouldn't change it for the world.

The fourth and final reason that it is good to have little ones afoot during your workday is this: exercise. If you are getting up and down on occasion and chasing the crayon-wielding, lipstick-wearing, cookie bandit around the house, you are getting out of your seat and getting a quickie cardio kick-start.

These little moments of activity really are good for you. We work at home parents tend to not get nearly enough of those moments, since we aren't walking to our cars and offices or climbing stairs to get into and out of the parking garage. We are missing out on exercise that others don't even realize they are getting. So, it's a fair trade and worth every single calorie burned while we are chasing the little ones around the office, silently praying that they don't have the document we hope they don't in their grubby little paws.

Yes -- your little ones can be distracting and down right destructive, if you aren't carefully supervising -- even if you are, for that matter. They can also be terribly sweet and loving and perfectly delightful to watch and enjoy as they grow and learn so much each and every day.

I feel as if were I were to blink long and hard, I'd open my eyes and they would suddenly be grown and gone. Imagine how much I would miss if I were to leave them with others and go to an office each and every day?

Adam Terebeckij is a seasoned Internet Marketing Entrepreneur and Private Real Estate Investor. His insight and information has helped countless individuals around the world. For more information on the TOP Work From Home jobs and Work At Home Business Opportunities visit: http://www.LegitimateBusinessOpportunities.com

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Making money online is a hard thing for many people to learn. Please allow me to show you four proven systems for getting started.

Knowing how to make money online is a dream for many people!

If you're like me, then you probably want to make your own schedule and be in direct control of the amount of money that comes in every month.

But, there is a harsh reality to this dream …

Most people who want to know how to make money online never come close to making ANY cash. In fact, many of them don't make ONE cent from their efforts.

The truth is, there are a number of different ways to make money online.

How to make money online system #1- Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is probably the best way to make money online. The focus of this system is to refer paying customers to other people's products in return for a hefty commission.

What's great about affiliate marketing is you can get started in 5 minutes and be on your way to earning a sizeable income.

How to make money online system #2- Google Adsense

Google Adsense is another incredible method for earning cash on the Internet. Unlike other techniques, this one doesn't reqquire any selling or referrals. All you have to do is place code on a Website and you get paid every time someone clicks on your ads.

While this method may seem simple, it has become one of the top ways to earn money on the Internet. In fact, there are a few marketers who earn a six figure income each month just by using Google Adsense.

How to make money online system #3- Sell an information product

Selling your own information product is a great way to put yourself in the driver's seat of your own Internet business. While it's great to refer other products and do little work, creating an information product is one of the ways to build an actual business.

The good news is that everyone is capable of creating an information product. All you have to do is research a hot topic and you'll have an in-demand product which people will pay you a lot of money to read.

How to make money online system #4- Sell your services

Another way to build a profitable business is to sell your knowledge and services. While you might think it's hard to build an Internet business, you can actually get started quickly simply by offering freelance work to established businesses.

For instance, you can easily build a business by offering things like:

* Copywriting services
* Article and E-book creation
* Creating Web graphics and images
* Becoming a virtual assistant for busy marketers
* Designing software

As you can see, there are a number of legitimate ways to make money online today. If you want to learn how to make money online, I recommend you take action and start pursuing one of the four systems I described in this article.

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by Laura Patterson

The organizational charts of the 1920s often indicated that marketing's role was to represent the customer. In 2004, the American Marketing Association redefine marketing as "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders."

Marketing's job is to create customer value, engagement, satisfaction and loyalty. Marketing serves as the stand-in for the customer, informing product development and other functions of what customers want and need. Essentially, marketing serves as the "voice of the customer" and is responsible for developing and implementing the processes used to capture the customer requirements so the company is able to provide customers with the best in class service/product quality.

Today, customers are more empowered than ever and are taking control of how, when and where they consume. This is translating into customers who are less brand-loyal, less trusting, and prefer to get information from personal research, friends and product specialists. These changes have significant implications to businesses and marketing: changes in marketing mix, messaging and general approach to customer interaction.

In addition, commoditization, the Internet, mobility and virtualization are contributing to a transformation that is impacting companies on a variety of fronts, including product development.

The ability to develop products and services that offer fresh ideas and are relevant to customers is no easy task. As a result few businesses get it right and new products suffer a high mortality rate.

Insights into the customer are essential to ensuring product success. New product development depends on synthesizing the knowledge of what is needed in the market and the knowledge of how to create a product to meet these needs.

As the keeper of customer intelligence, marketing has an opportunity to positively impact innovation and new product/service development. By transforming customer insights into business insights marketing can then use these insights to drive innovation.

The creation of new products and services to meet the needs of customers provides the basic ingredient for growing shareholder value. A quote often attributed to Peter Drucker articulates the value of marketing and innovation, "Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business has two basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results, all the rest are costs."

Long-term corporate success is linked to the ability to innovate. Although corporate investment in incremental improvements and innovation to existing products and processes does bring growth, it is new game changing breakthroughs that will launch companies into new markets, enable rapid growth, provide a platform for long-term growth, and create high return on investment.

Yet in many companies, marketing is disenfranchised from the product development process being relegated to the role of sending out a press release and coordinating a new product launch event.

As the organization with the primary responsibility for segmenting the market, selecting the right target markets, defining the value proposition and communicating the value to the target markets, we are responsible for capturing, analyzing, and quantifying the data about who will buy. Marketing needs to understand not only who will buy but how many they will buy, why they buy, and when specific markets will buy. These are the insights the organization depends on from Marketing. These insights not only make or break a new product, they can make or break a company.

It is time for marketing executives and professionals to step into a leadership role related to innovation.

Marketing plays a central role in translating customer information into new products and then positioning these products in the market. New products/services are the way companies respond to changing customer preferences and dynamic competition. Changing customer needs require that companies innovate to satisfying and meet these changing customer needs.

Because marketing is responsible for identifying customer needs, marketing needs to step up and take a leadership role in the innovation process. And some CMOs realize they need to do just that. At the recent Red Herring CMO Summit, they presented the results of their annual CMO study. The study revealed that CMOs acknowledge they have a responsibility for innovation not just selling.

Various studies have shown that companies where marketing and R&D communicate and cooperate have enhanced new product performance. Studies done in 1987 by Ruekert and Walker, in 1993 by Song and Parry, and in 1988 by Souder found that marketing's participation in the new product development process and its integration with other functional groups such as research and development are among the most important factors affecting new product success.

Marketing's ability to influence new product development is a key ingredient. A 1999 study of 114 hi-tech companies in China found that marketing plays an important and influential role in positively impacting new product performance and the timeliness of development.

Where do you start if you want to lead the innovation charge? Marketing needs to help the organization spot new trends and then quickly leverage them into opportunities. If you decide to go on this journey, you will need marketing metrics tied to speed and innovation that show the impact on marketing.

Marketing organizations should include at least six metrics on their executive dashboard around innovation and speed within the context of comparing your company's performance with that of industry peers marketing organizations:

1. Rate of customer acquisition compared with industry peers

2. Rate of profitable customer growth compared with industry peers

3. Rate of Growth compared to industry peers

4. Rate of product adoption

5. Rate of new product success

6. Time to market and revenue

Innovation in new product development and new ways for the company to enrich the customer experience present marketing with an opportunity to play a role in helping strategically grow the company.

Departments like product development and marketing are not separate independent areas. They are instead like our right and left hands. Working separately they are clumsily and in-effective. However, working together, the two hands can create many wonderful things.

Laura Patterson is the author of 'Measure What Matters': Reconnecting Marketing to Business Goals, 'Gone Fishin': A Guide to Finding, Keeping, and Growing Profitable Customers, and numerous articles on marketing subjects. She is president and co-founder of VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, a leading metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services associated.

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by Keith Lee

I stopped being an advertising victim in 1992 when I was first introduced to Dan Kennedy Marketing, and it is one of the most important lessons I've learned. I'm happy to say I haven't been an advertising victim for 13 years.

If you have been in business for awhile, it has already happened to you - probably more than once. In fact, probably often. And if you are new to the retail world, you can bet the mortgage that it will eventually happen to you.

What is it? It's when you get that big black checkbook out of the center desk drawer, and you sit down across from some media salesperson, and you write out some kind of a check for some amount, for some kind of promotion advertising expense, and you have no earthly idea whether you made a good decision, bad decision, when you'll know, how you'll know, if you'll know.

I detest that kind of uncertainty. I don't like to play guesswork games with my money and I bet you don't either. I'm going to tell you how to eliminate it, how to make every dollar you spend on advertising and marketing measurable and accountable.

The Best Place To Spend Your Hard Earned Money On Advertising Is Direct Response!!

All advertising can be one of only two types - either "Institutional Advertising" or "Direct Response Advertising." It is monumentally important to understand the difference.

Most advertising in magazines, newspapers, on radio, TV, and billboards is institutional advertising. It is Institutional advertising because in most cases, there is no way of accurately tracking response.

Most advertising agencies like institutional advertising since, without tracking, they can NOT be held responsible for zero results. If an ad campaign does not produce the results they want, they blame it on:

1. The economy
2. The weather
3. You didn't run the ad often enough
4. YOU (your merchandise, your service, your image, etc.)

You Can't Deposit "Creativity" In The Bank

Unfortunately, most advertising agencies are interested in being creative and cutesy. That's what wins advertising awards.

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. The advertising field gives awards based on creativity, not results. Many ads that have won top awards didn't produce any substantial increases in sales.

Direct response advertising, on the other hand:

1. Contains a headline that flags your prospect and creates curiosity

2. Creates interest in the merchandise

3. Creates desire in the prospect

4. Has a specific offer

5. Has a deadline

6. Has measurable results

Why is this so important? Two reasons:

1. Most businesses have limited capital to spend on their marketing and advertising (unless you are Coca Cola or Microsoft). Since you have a limited budget, why waste it on advertising that you are not sure is working?

2. The only reason a business would advertise is to get more customers and sell more merchandise. A direct response ad concentrates only on this purpose.

First, it contains a headline that attracts the attention of the specific customer you want to in your store(s).

Then, it makes a complete and compelling case for the reason for your offer. Next, it proves to the customer that the reason for the offer will solve some problem in the customer's life or provide some valuable benefit to him.

It states specific reasons, facts, and statistics, as well as testimonials from other customers to validate the claims. Then it tells the reason why you are able to make such an attractive offer. It tells the customer what to do in order to gain the benefits of the offer.

It creates "urgency" by telling the customer that he must act now in order to gain these important benefits, and why this offer is so limited, either by time, or by the quantity available.

Finally, it must contain a way for you to track exactly what sales or custome rs were generated by that particular ad.

Now that I have defined for you the difference between institutional and direct response advertising, here's the big question that you have to ask yourself before you make every future marketing and advertising decision. Does the advertising that you are considering meet all six of the criteria that I outlined above? If it doesn't, then pass on it as quickly as you can say:

"I'm Mad as Hell and I Refuse to Be an Advertising Victim Again!"

Keith Lee, owner of American Retail Supply headquartered in Kent, WA became president of the business in 1981 and later bought the business from its founder Dick Thompson. Although Lee credits much of their growth to increased product offerings and what he calls 'the best client service in the industry," he attributes the companies Herculean increase to the discovery of the world renowned Marketing Guru, Dan Kennedy. Now he's trying to get other entrepreneurs hooked. Keith recently became trained as a Dan Kennedy Certified No B.S. Business Advisor where he delivers what he calls Kennedy's 'Magnetic Marketing Strategies.' As a Kennedy trained advisor Keith offers entrepreneurs what he calls 'The Most Incredible FREE Gift Ever' containing over $700.00 of business-building information from Dan Kennedy including Gold Inner Circle Membership. Then members are invited to attend monthly local chapter meetings or can join a local Kennedy Study & Mastermind Group. Visit http://www.LeeMarketing Group or http://www.NoBSPugetSound.com for more details.

Keith is an expert in marketing, especially direct marketing and direct mail techniques. please visit http://www.leemarketinggroup.com or http://www.nobspugetsound.com for more articles and information.

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by Tywford Lamai

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd wager on the likelihood that you have come across the word "ClickBank" during your foray through the jungle of Internet affiliate marketing, right?

So -- just who or what is this "ClickBank"? That's what we are here to discover today!

ClickBank is the Internet's leading retailer of digital products. ClickBank is also the Internet's largest digital marketplace, where thousands of the Web's most popular digital products are sold every single day.

Whether you're looking to buy, sell, or promote digital products, ClickBank is for you!

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular businesses online. This is a business where you earn a right to share profits with a merchant (product owner) -- in the form of affiliate commissions -- for sending targeted traffic to his/her product sales page.

The most common and popular type of affiliate marketing is called Pay-Per-Sale: This is a form of affiliate marketing where you are paid for every sale generated from a customer/visitor who lands on a product sales page via your affiliate link. This is very simple in theory -- find a very good converting product, market this product, and collect/cash your commission checks!

"Make $10,517! -- in 24 hrs -- Guaranteed!" -- You see adverts and promotions like this on the Internet DAILY! Success stories that describe a from-rags-to-riches miracle which happened by peddling a "highly converting" digital product!

Needless to say, not all such stories are true, but that is not to say that affiliate marketing wealth is impossible either! -- it is very possible to become very wealthy selling other people's products. All you need is the "know how."

How do all of these people link to ClickBank? And who are ClickBank's private army?

Promoting products and receiving commissions for sales is made possible and relatively easy by ClickBank! Currently boasting an "army" of well over 100,000+ affiliate marketers, ClickBank is a force to reckon with if you are hoping to carve a niche in the dangerous and highly-competitive terrain of Internet affiliate marketing!

ClickBank also boasts of a list of over 11,000 products with affiliate commissions as high as 75%! You'll also appreciate their fast & accurate tracking system and dependable payment services -- every two weeks without fail!

They've never missed a scheduled payment!

Not an affiliate marketer but a product owner you say? Well, check this out:

You can sell your digital products today hassle-free! Just leverage over 100,000 ClickBank affiliate marketers to find customers for your digital products and multiply your profits. Account setup is simple & fast. If you try them out, you'll find out why over 10,000 publishers/merchants already trust ClickBank.

When it comes to customer support, ClickBank has established an experienced support team dedicated to your success. Their customer service representatives are available to quickly and effectively resolve your account setup, maintenance and order related support needs.

Army huh? How do they keep track of who is who?

Clickbank uses a technology aptly named "hoplink" -- you know, like people use your hoplink to hop onto their Website :) This is how they ensure that an affiliate is properly credited for his marketing efforts.

To take advantage of the highly lucrative offers from all the merchants registered with ClickBank, you must first register. To do this, you will go to ClickBank.com and click on the signup link.

After you sign up, you will be given a username (chosen by you) and you can then begin the process of choosing what you want to market/promote. You are now officially a member of the highly elite affiliate marketing/combatant force of clickbank!

Welcome!

You will have noticed that becoming a member of ClickBank's army is not difficult. Now, what is difficult is making those affiliate checks consistently. If you can't achieve this no-mean-feat, you won't remain an affiliate marketer for long because you will give up out of frustration and throw in the towel!

But thank God there are many ways to promote the products listed in the ClickBank marketplace!

How do you find those products? Well that's why I am here ain't it?

How about I make a deal with you? Interested?

Alright. I know a guy who is in the business of helping affiliate marketers earn their very first commission and continues helping them until they become tired or bored! I am willing to introduce you to him IF you are really interested (***Please only for interested affiliates or to-be affiliates!)

For more details on this offer please see the resource box...

Happy affiliate marketing to you. Chao!

Why settle for promoting only ONE product when you can make BOAT-LOADS of CASH marketing 100,000+ products with ONE affiliate ID Guaranteed!? Did I mention that it IS FREE? Visit http://www.brainboxcorp.com/index.html NOW to claim your FREE ClickBank Portal!

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by John Hirth

You know this one ... you've identified what they need, maybe even found out how much they are willing to pay. Now it's time for that infamous "trial close."

"If I can show you a way to solve your problems, will you buy my product?"

They answer "yes" and you believe you've got the deal. Then, you come back and make your presentation and, when you ask, "so -- are you ready to buy?" the prospect says, "I like it, but I'm going to have to check on some other options."

Now you ask, "what went wrong?" Weren't they listening, or did they just out-and-out lie?

Think about it... when you asked, "if I can show you a way to solve your problem, will you buy my product?" what was the prospect thinking? Usually, they're in one of two positions: ready to buy and favorably disposed to your offer (in which case, you would have gotten the deal), or not ready to buy -- still needing more information.

I believe that, by asking that closing question, you often end up forcing your prospect to "lie" -- a strategy that, half the time, will back-fire!

Here's why.

If they were really ready to buy when you asked for the "trial close," I think you would have gotten the order. However, in this situation I don't think they were that far along. In fact, they probably needed more information, hoping that your presentation might provide it.

What they would really like to say is, "I'm not sure I'm ready to make a decision," but they're afraid if they tell you that, you won't give them the information they need. So they lie and say "yes," to get what they want.

It's not that they are "bad people" -- it's that you're a "bad" sales person!

What will work much better is what we refer to as an "open close." Your question is a closed-ended question, only giving the prospect two choices.

Use an open close like, "If I show you a solution to your problem that you believe will work, what would you feel comfortable doing next?" With this open close, there is much less pressure and the prospect will more likely tell you the truth. They haven't been put in a corner, forced to pick one of only two answers.

Now can tell you anything.

The true "sales master" understands that, "to close or not to close," is really the prospects' choice and, by giving them more options with an "open close," you will raise your winning percentages!

Now that I've shown you a better way to close -- will you use it?

Instead of thinking about closing business, think about "opening" new business. With that thought in mind, "open closing" should be much easier!

John E. Hirth is President and founding principal of Selling Dynamics, a sales force development, sales training and sales process consulting firm dedicated to increasing sales revenue and corporate profits. Email: jeh@sellingdynamics.com Website: http://www.johnhirth.com .

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by James White

If you're reading this article, there is a big chance you're part of the 95%. The good news is -- you don't have to be. The problem is, most people don't PAY ATTENTION.

Let me explain.

When you surf the Web, you click on sites that catch your eye. Even when you surf for credits, when you come across a site you like, you may opt in for their E-mail newsletter.

This is were you should be paying attention!

What was it that made you click that link, opt in for the newsletter or even join up? Take note of what phrases they used. What message did they portray to get you interested?

Then, create your own slogan or cover letter portraying the same message, but written differently. Doing this will help you become a better marketer and create better ads for whatever purpose you need -- for opt-in lists, E-zine ads, articles, cover pages, etc.

It is almost impossible to market something online unless you offer a free product, special offer, or a free E-mail course.

Where most people seem to fail is getting at their target market, such as Internet marketers or people already searching for a product to buy.

Trying to covert Internet marketers into your down line for any System is extremely hard. The reason for this is that they most likely already have a system that they are promoting and have their hands full. When marketing, try targeting a different market other than Internet marketers. This would include people new to Internet marketing or looking for an opportunity that really works, with testimonies or a free trial offer.

This sort of thing applies in ad words. This is something you will have to think about for yourself.

Another marketing technique is to relate to your customers or potential downline members. Slogans such as, "I was a broke loser, sound familiar?" "I tried this technique, now I earn 2000+ a day."

This WAS a good marketing strategy, but it has been overused lately and a lot of people have seen it. Now, a lot of people do actually make that much money online.

Letting people know how easy the system is and a brief honest overview of how it works and why it will work for them usually does the trick. Making things sound too good to be true doesn't usually work, as a lot of people are not easily convinced.

Say you actually have people in your downline, but it's not really going anywhere. This problem has a simple solution -- but it will also take a little work on your part.

Get in contact with them and I don't mean make an awkward phone call. E-mail is fine. Tell them one of the things that helped you build your downline then, at the end of the E-mail, say, "If this helped you, or if you need more assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me at example@emailsite.com.

Helping your prospects and customers succeed is the best possible thing you can do.

Sure -- you're giving away free information that may have taken you years to learn. The point of this is, by helping them succeed, you are improving your downline's success rate, ultimately increasing your own success.

This technique is very important and will keep people in your downline and hopefully increase their recruiting ability.

Hope this helps you break out of the 95% barrier.

This site brings me in a full-time income -- a realistic proven opportunity. Join now, and I will personally coach you http://www.recruitprofits.com/pips.html . After you join, just E-mail me at support@recruitprofits.com I will be more than willing to help you.

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by Pete Grundner

Let me first say that Google Adwords (Google pay per click), when done correctly, will give you the best return on your money compared to other online advertising options. At the same time, if you don't know how Google evaluates your campaign, it could cost you a fortune.

Let’s first examine how Google is different from other search vehicles.

Most search engines base the placement of your ad on how much you pay per click, i.e., the one who pays the most for a specific keyword will be positioned in the #1 spot.

Not so with Google. In an attempt to deliver more relevant content to its readers, Google uses several parameters to determine the order in which it serves up its ads. Not knowing or ignoring these parameters can cost you big! And, unless your enterprise has very deep pockets, it can even mean the difference between success and failure.

When doing a pay per click campaign on Google, your ad position will be based on keyword selection, ad relevance to those keywords, bid price, average click rate, how long visitors stay on your site, and even the match of your landing page to your ad and keyword.

Essentially, you could be paying the most per click and be listed in the #5 position! Or, vise-versa, you could be paying less than the top 5 bidders and be in the #1 spot!

When setting up your Google Adwords (pay per click) campaign, all these elements will affect your position in the ranking, so make sure that:

• Your keywords are not too broad
• Your ad relates to your keywords (keyword grouping is important)
• Your bid price is at least competitive
• Your click rate is good (above 1-3% is great, below 0.5% is a killer)
• Keywords you choose match the content on your landing page
• You use text instead of Flash. This is very important…using Flash landing pages without text will affect your ad position in a negative way (Google perceives pages with no information the same as pages with non relevant information).

The more you adhere to these parameters, the lower your cost per click and the better your conversions will be.

I appreciate Google's well thought-out ranking policies. When searching online for info, I hate nothing more than clicking on an ad that sends me to a page that has little or nothing to do with what I am researching. If I don't see relevant information within a few seconds, I'm gone, and irritated about the waste of time!

Look for our next article, where we’ll cover "The biggest mistake when doing Google Adwords." Sign up for our "Marketing Insight" E-zine and be the first to view it.

This article is brought to you by Peter Grundner at P&T Enterprises.
For more information, please visit www.how2succeedonline.net and www.myedconline.com

Peter Grundner, a top advertising and marketing professional for over 20 years, has been responsible for the success of many companies, including a recent stint as Director of Marketing for a Website that was acquired by a large publisher for tens of millions of dollars. He is now a full-time Home Business Entrepreneur and founder of www.myEDConline.com & www.How2SucceedOnline.net.

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by Amit Kothiyal

Social bookmarking is a new trend in search engine optimization, which has gained recognition as part of a new type of Website optimization, termed "social media optimization (SMO)."

Social Bookmarking, also referred to sometimes as "social bookmarketing," is the term used for bookmarking sites on the Web and sharing them with friends. It is similar to bookmarking a site on your pc, in the "favorites" of your Web browser.

There are an increasing number of Websites available that provide this as a free service for bookmarking your favorite sites or blogs on the Web. These sites are known as social bookmarking sites. Once you have created a free account, you may begin adding bookmarks to your account.

The advantage is that, once you have bookmarked any site, then you can access them from anywhere on the Web -- and also share them with friends.

These are some popular social bookmarking sites:

del.icio.us, Digg.com, Simpy.com, blogmarks.net, feedmarker.com, myweb2.search.yahoo.com, lookmarks.com, bluedot.com, furl.net.

So -- how is social bookmarking useful for SEO?

Social bookmarking sites are "tag based" - which means you can "tag" them with keywords, so your visitors that bookmark your site can find them easily later. Search engines index these tags, as well as the link, so you are essentially getting free one-way links from high-traffic sites, with all of your keywords attached to them!

It's a great way to get your Website visitors working for you. However, choosing proper tag names is critical and plays a very important role, if you want to truly get social bookmarking to work for you in your search engine optimization process.

The interesting thing is that there are no limitations for the number of tags you can attach to your link. The extent to which you declare tags will allow for your site’s information to be stored. Additionally, when someone bookmarks your site, the bookmarking site checks the tags to see if the link already exists.

By periodically changing your bookmark tags, you can get multiple links with different tags on the same site. In other words, your site will be stored in different pages and you will get links from the different pages of the same sites.

Because these sites are regularly crawled by search engines, your site will most likely also be crawled more often by having bookmarked links on these Websites.

Amit Kothiyal is a Website marketing executive for Phoenix- and Las Vegas-based Web design & marketing firm Vision Media Corporation. Vision Media specializes in rich Web application development (http://www.vizmarketing.com/), search engine optimization (http://www.vizmarketing.com/web-marketing-and-search-engine-optimization-i-8.html), custom Website design, multimedia production and other rich Web applications.

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by Lensmaster Lewis Smile and Citizen Squid

MySpace is one of the most popular Websites on the Internet and, if harnessed correctly, it can send more traffic to your Website than the search engines currently do -- and you can do this at very little cost and with surprisingly very little time commitment.

SEO was the buzz word of yesterday. Social networking and Web 2.0 are the buzz words for tomorrow.

Here is how to harnass it correctly and get 1,000,000 friends fasat:

***************************************************

1. THE SIMPLE.

Join MySpace.

This is obvious. To get 1 million myspace friends, you must first join MySpace. It is free, and it's simple to sign up.

***************************************************

2. THE BEAUTIFUL.

Create an attractive MySpace profile.

MySpace allows you to create a profile page for yourself. Having a MySpace profile which takes a full minute to load just won't cut it if you want to grow your friend numbers.

On your profile editing page, you are allowed to insert HTML code, in order to change certain aspects of the page, or to completely revamp it.

If you want to completely revamp it, you will need what is called a MySpace overlay. An overlay is the simplest way to make your page attractive, clean-cut, simple, and user-friendly. If you don't already know what an overlay is don't worry too much. If you do know what an overlay is, make use of one.

***************************************************

3. THE SLOW.

Start adding the people you know.

If you visit the profile page of someone you already know, you will not only be able to add them as your friend, but you'll also be able to see who they have as friends and you'll be able to add them, too.

Add someone you know, then find one of their friends who you also know, add them, them add one of their friends, etc etc. Do this with only people you know until you get to between 30 - 50 friends.

***************************************************

4. THE TURBO-CHARGED.

The problem with MySpace is that you have to add friends one-by-one. Trying to get a meaningful number of connections using this method is painfully slow at the best of times, so programmers have created numerous software applications which will speed up the process for you and allow you to type in the location, gender, age, interests, etc, of your target friends and it will add them for you. Automatically.

I recommend the application Badder Adder. You can get a free trial at http://www.bwcard.co.uk . The full version is $47. It gives you unlimited upgrades, and will let you "chain" accounts together."

This means, basically, that you can send more than the 450-friend-requests-per-day limit. You just set it to go, and it does the rest.

***************************************************

5. THE COMMUNICATION.

The key to getting up to 1,000,000 friends is also by commenting on other people's profiles. A link to your own profile is then set up and people interested in your picture can click and add you.

You can use Badder Adder to send out comments to all of your myspace friends in bulk, so you don't need to do them one-by-one anymore. So long as you don't spam other users and you treat them with respect, this feature alone will get you incredible visibility on myspace and should provide a constant stream of friend requests.

***************************************************

If you do each of these 5 points, your MySpace page will explode in popularity and will be seen by thousands of people every day.

What will this mean for you? More affiliate sales? More CD sales? More book sales?

You'd better get started!

***************************************************

Lewis Smile is a Squidoo Lensmaster and Citizen Squid, and has written about how to get one million MySpace friends on his lens at http://www.squidoo.com/1000000-million-myspace-friends. His lens also features a Badder Adder Review.

To find out more (for free) or to contact Lewis, go to: http://www.squidoo.com/1000000-million-myspace-friends

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by Matthew Hesser

It sounds too simple to be true, but it really is ... A well-targeted and timely PRESS RELEASE to the media is the most powerful form of marketing and advertising on the planet!

A high quality press release, with the proper targeting and distribution to reach the correct media members, could have many businesses sailing on a sea of new sales and profits. Just one feature or a mention in a popular or targeted business publication has the potential to cause some business's phones to literally be ringing off the hook!

The next big question that arises, "How do you go about writing a quality press release that will grab the attention of the media and your particular audience?"

Here are some tips to help you succeed:

* Pick a "Newsworthy" Angle.

Press releases are not an advertisement. Do not try to sell your product or service. Do not use "hype" in press releases. Instead, give the media what they want and they will give you what you want.

What the press and media really want is a story! Just provide the "Who, What, When, Where" and "How" with regards to the uses of your products and/or services in a story format. Show examples of ways that people have used your products and services to their benefit. If you can include some emotions in your story, all the better.

Ask yourself: "Would this be something that I might read in a newspaper?"

* Get a Good Start.

The headline and the first few sentences of the first paragraph are the absolutely most important part of the press release. If you don't catch the reader's interest here, you will lose your audience. The best way to do this is to use your most hard-hitting information FIRST rather than build to a climax. This may be opposite to what you would normally do when writing other material - but it does work! What follows in your press release are the details that SUPPORT your story or theme.

* Write to the Media.

Remember, a journalist, editor or reporter, not necessarily a client, is reading your press release. It's not your job to sell them your product or service. It IS your job to give them an interesting story or piece of news that they will be happy to share and announce to their audience.

* Keep your release short and to the point.

It should contain no more than about 500 words and no more than two pages.

Include your contact information. Provide full contact name, company name, full address, phone number, E-mail address and Web site URL. The contact name should be someone who is knowledgeable and available to answer any questions by media members, such as editors, reporters and journalists.

Targeted press releases to the media have helped thousands of companies succeed. They are the most powerful form of marketing and advertising on the planet!

Remember: One article is all it takes!

For more information on how you can get a quality targeted press release written or have your press release distributed to the targeted media contacts in our 600,0000 press and media contact database, please visit our Advanced PR department at Majon International.

Matthew Hesser is President and CEO of Majon International, one of the most popular Internet marketing and advertising companies online, located at: http://www.majon.com . To get a high-quality targeted press release written and/or distributed to the press and media, as well as get GUARANTEED media and press coverage for your business please visit: http://www.advanced-pr.com

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by Kevin Gibbs

Using the Internet to its highest potential when it comes to indexing and promoting your Website is vital to your business. No matter whether you provide a service or a product, getting the word out about it is your primary goal.

Google, being the world's most popular search engine, is naturally going to be one of the places you want to submit your Website URL to, and Google offers free submission opportunities.

However, merely submitting your Website isn't the answer to instant rankings and visitors. It takes hard work, patience and search engine optimization know-how to achieve a top ranking with Google. The easier your Website is to find by Google "spiders," the more chance you'll have of reaching better positions in the Google ranking index.

Google is the most popular search engine in the world today, and earning a top ranking there is definitely a feather in anyone's cap. Taking advantage of several different options will help you to obtain your goals. Determination is the key when it comes to achieving high rankings in Google, and it's not an endeavor for the weak of heart.

One of the most important things a Webmaster or Web business can do to enhance rankings is to write and distribute articles relating to your topic, service or product to article directories throughout the Web. Embedding links to your article, called back links, will get your Website noticed by Google spiders, but don't overdo it. Try to limit your back links to one per article.

Articles should be written well, grammatically correct and include keywords or keyword phrases that relate to your product or service. (These keywords should also be listed in the Meta Tags used to design your Website).

When writing SEO Google content, keep in mind the following factors for success, not only in obtaining ranking with Google, but with the success of your content in its ability to do what you have designed it to do; inform and get people back to your site.

When searching through Google's ranked pages, certain factors become immediately apparent. The most successful written content has these things in common:

1) Content is comprised of paragraphs that are fairly brief, with between 3 to 5 sentences each. White space around paragraphs and content allows for easy reading and addresses short attention spans when it comes to reading on the Internet.

2) Proper grammar and spelling is used in the content. As always, make sure that you proofread your work before submitting to article directories and banks. Make sure that use of punctuation, quotations, and sentence structure and flow are correct and proofed. If you are aware of your own shortcomings in the writing department, have someone else proof your material.

Content that is poorly written is more damaging to your reputation and that of your Website than no content at all.

3) Many articles submitted to Google, and to other search engines, are written with bulleted lists. This serves to break up large areas of text as well as to provide precise information related to a specific topic.

4) Most highly ranked pages on the Internet are updated regularly, and by regularly, that means ideally about once a week, or at least twice a month.

5) Sentence structure is varied, which means that short and long sentences are mixed together.

6) Keyword density is over-rated these days, but using keywords in your content is desired.

However, don't stuff articles with keywords when their usage doesn't add flow to the text or is too obvious. Make sure that the keywords you are using make sense within the overall focus of your article.

Choosing the wrong keywords, or choosing highly used and common keywords or phrases won't help you much, so it pays to be knowledgeable about how to go about determining how popular or unpopular particular keywords are before you even start writing.

Keyword stuffing, or overusing certain keywords in any given article, will only defeat your purpose, as search engine spiders, especially those launched by Google, seem to know every trick out there.

Bottom line: have a professional look over your text before you launch your Website. Be aware that having someone write SEO content for you doesn't mean they will do it correctly, either. Good SEO writing means more than focusing on keyword density, placement and catchy article titles. Good SEO content should contain useful, correctly structured sentences with proper grammar and spelling.

Google itself offers a terse explanation of how to get your Website content highly ranked: Good content. It's so simple that most people don't believe it's true.

A Website owner can sit down and research keywords, keyword density and Google algorithm factors until they're blue in the face, and it won't make a difference if the words don't make sense or the spelling is so atrocious that visitors will take one look, laugh and click away.

Submitting articles to article directories and providing free articles, with your Website back link in them, of course, is a great way to get noticed, but keep in mind that sometimes dozens of articles or more must be written and submitted before you're going to get noticed.

This doesn't mean just writing about anything, it means carefully choosing and selecting appropriate keywords that will get your content noticed by search engine spiders and thereby bring you the results you're looking for.

Website HTML coding and proper use of Meta tags is essential in creating Google SEO results and, as it is with anything worth having, it takes time, patience and determination to learn. There are no easy shortcuts when it comes to creating SEO content that will fly with Google and gain you a coveted page ranking.

Take advantage of the opportunity to submit your articles to free directory listings, especially at Google, as well as writing numerous, free articles for submission purposes and properly using back links. This will get you started on your way to success.

Utilizing Google tools and accessing their news, site directory, helpful hints and forum boards will help hopeful Webmasters achieve their goals when it comes to obtaining a long and enduring, and hopefully beneficial relationship with Google, whose influence reaches to the far corners of the globe.

Kevin Gibbs is the founder of articlestamp.com a successful article directory that provides user's the opportunity to improve their traffic performance. You can contact Kevin at kevin@articlestamp.com for more info on article writing.

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by Caroline Melberg

If you are an avid reader of Blue Chip Tips, you’ll know that I spend a good deal of time on the water, and a portion of that time on the water is spent fishing.

Living in The Land of 10,000 Lakes makes this not too difficult to do, but I also enjoy fishing everywhere our travels take us (hence our recent fishing and photographic expedition to Alaska).

Over the course of my lifetime, I am pretty sure I’ve reeled in just about every type of freshwater fish available in our northern lakes – except one. The Musky.

Walleye and bass and northern pike – all day long. Sunfish and crappie and bluegill – no problem. But muskies? Not one.

I’ve had what is referred to in fishing parlance as "a follow" – where you look down at your lure as you reel it toward the boat just in time to catch a splash and hear the water ripple as a giant musky is tempted by your lure – only to turn and swim away at the last minute.

But I’ve never reeled one in.

Muskies are a sport fish – they can grow to be huge – the world record muskie, caught in Hayward, Wisconsin, was 63-1/2” long and weighed 69 lbs. – and just in case you aren’t into fishing - that’s a big freshwater fish. But you wouldn’t want to eat one.

Muskies don’t just bite at anything you throw at them – they take work. While you can go out and catch walleye with little effort, the musky is the fish of 10,000 casts. If you haven’t put in your time on the water, you won’t catch one. Muskies take sweat equity.

Advertising headlines are a lot like the elusive musky. While writing body copy comes fairly easily, the most important element of your ad or direct mail piece – the headline – takes hard work. You’ve got to put your time in "on the water" to nail one – and even the experts consistently write over 100 unique headlines for each promotion before they settle on the most compelling choice.

Fortunately – just like fishing pros use all sorts of "special tricks" to improve their musky-catching odds – copywriters use secrets of their own to consistently craft powerful, arresting headlines.

That said, here are 5 secrets you can use immediately to improve your headlines and improve your odds of reeling in your prospect:

1. Keep it Simple!

The best headlines are difficult to write because you must eliminate every unnecessary word and focus on one compelling idea – one and only one. Too many ideas will confuse your reader and you’ll lose your prospect.

2. Focus on Now

Your headline needs to create a sense of urgency to break through the clutter and get your prospect to focus on what you have to say. Something isn’t going to happen – it IS happening.

3. Benefits

By reading your ad or direct mail piece, your prospect should learn something they didn’t know before. By providing an inherent benefit in your headline, you build trust with your prospect which encourages them to read further.

4. Useful

Make sure the information conveyed in your headline is useful to your prospect – implying or referring to information that they need or want to know.

5. Specific

Tell your reader what you are talking about – what will your product or service specifically do for your prospect that your competitor’s product or service will not? Tell your prospect and watch your sales grow!

Entrepreneur and outdoor photography adventurer Caroline Melberg is President and CEO of Small Business Mavericks, a division of Melberg Marketing. She has over 20 years of experience creating marketing communications materials and writing copy for some of the largest and most successful companies in the world. Her small business columns are syndicated online, and she publishes the popular eZine, "Small Business Maverick Secrets." Learn insider Maverick Marketing secrets you can use immediately to find new customers and increase your sales. When you subscribe, you'll also get a FREE copy of her e-Book, "Local Small Business Internet Marketing Secrets" - learn insider secrets to marketing your local small business on the Web today! Get your FREE subscription at www.SmallBusinessMavericks.com.

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by Donald Lee

Have you ever wondered why your perfectly fine classified ad fails to attract the attention you desire? There should be dozens -- no, hundreds of perspective buyers swamping your E-mail inbox with offers. After all, you are offering a mint baseball card, a vintage coat, pristine used car, those wholesale-priced sporting goods, and whatever other attractive items are in your inventory.

Instead, you only have a slow trickle of questions, a handful of sales.

What gives? More than likely, your sales are slow because you have not mastered the three techniques of writing a classic classified ad.

Give yourself credit for recognizing one important facet of today's selling world. You decided to sell your stuff at an online classified site. As anybody in the business knows, online classified ads get you more privacy, a broader selection of buyers, and a wealth of tools to help you keep tabs on your transactions.

When compared to a newspaper, cyberspace is also a wee bit more spacious. There are billions of pages on the Web, and only a few dozen in your typical neighborhood rag. For you, that means a lot more space for your ad to say the least.

With that space, however, comes great responsibility and great potential. The extra room gives you the freedom to include as much product description and sale copy as you want. You can't just slap together a whole bunch of information, though. You need to use the three special ad writing techniques that will attract buyers and seal the deal: attention, interest, and action.

Attention

Make sure the buyer stops at your ad instead of the thousands upon thousands of others out there in cyberspace. Your ad's title is the first lure to grab his or her attention, and the first component of a catchy title is the item's best feature, whether it's the price, the item's rarity, or its popularity.

Next, be sure the title includes keywords or other synonyms for your item that a buyer might use in a search. For instance, a buyer could search for "automobile" instead of "car," "pullover" instead of "sweater."

Interest

Once you have the buyer's attention, hook them with details. There is a direct relationship between the amount of information you provide and the number of sales you'll make. Describe the item as completely as possible -- size, color, material, designer, model -- and provide a clear, digital photo to finish the job where your words leave off.

Offer your prospective customer the item's history, if possible.

Also, try to list as many possible benefits that your sale item could offer the buyer. Come up with some that the buyer probably wouldn't think of on his or her own. And zone in on specific benefits.

Use what you already know about your target. For instance, if you were selling a car, you know that whoever is looking at your ad is in need of a vehicle. If your car is compact, perhaps the buyer is in search of great gas mileage. Or perhaps it's power he or she wants, if your car is a sports model.

Action

Finish your ad strongly. Don't just suggest to the buyer that you offer a great deal. Tell them it's a fantastic offer that they can't pass up. Use phrases like "Call me now, before someone else does" or "Buy now, this opportunity won't last long."

Be cordial while you're pressing the issue. Thank them for reading your ad and make sure they know you appreciate their business.

Most importantly, your customers will also value your honesty throughout the whole ad. Whether it's the attention, interest, or action you're shooting for, never lie or exaggerate. Go so far to include any defects, if your product is not in mint shape.

Your honesty will build trust, and trust, above all else, makes an ad work. What's more, it makes for repeat customers.

Remember, if you use all three of these elements -- or four, if you include honesty -- when you're finished with it, it should read something like the two examples below.

Example 1:

Discover the beauty of a Forest Hill Home
2500 sq. ft. home, 4 bedroom, 3 baths, double garage, upgraded kitchen, 12 ft. ceilings
This open concept house is situated in a historical landmark district of Rhode Island. It's a wonderful neighborhood to raise your family, with nearby schools and amenities.

(Insert your image or photo here.)

Call for an on-site appointment. Thanks for looking!

Example 2:
Looking for an inexpensive used car that drives well? Only $4,950.
2003 Honda Civic, Limited Edition, 65,000 miles, manual transmission, CD, AM/FM radio, power steering, low maintenance. Great on gas - this car will save you $$$ on high gasoline prices.

(Insert your image or photo here.)

Send me a message now. Thanks for looking!

Donald Lee is the public relations manager for Buysellcommunity.com. Buysellcommunity provides free classified listing services for individuals and businesses to market their products and services online. For global and localized classifieds, please visit http://www.buysellcommunity.com -- Free Buy and Sell Classifieds.

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by Trenton Moss

A higher search ranking is what many Website owners dream of. What they don't realize is that optimising their sites for the search engines, if done correctly, can also optimise it for their site visitors.

Ultimately, this means more people finding your Website, increased sales and increased lead generation.

But -- are search engine optimisation and usability compatible? Aren't there trade-offs that need to be made between giving search engines what they want and giving people what they want?

Read on and find out!

1. Keyword research carried out

Before you even begin building your Website, you should carry out keyword research to identify which keyword phrases your site should target. Using publicly available tools such as Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com), you can discover which keywords are searched for the most frequently and then specifically target those phrases.

Doing keyword research is also crucial for your site's usability. By using the same keywords in your Website that Web users are searching for in search engines, you'll literally be speaking the same language as your site visitors.

For example, you might decide to target the phrase, "sell toys", as your Website does in fact sell toys. Keyword research would undoubtedly show you that Web users are actually searching for, "buy toys" (think about it - have you ever searched using the word, "sell", when you want to buy something?). By placing the phrase, "buy toys" on to the pages on your Website, you'll be using the same words as your site visitors and they'll be able to find what they're looking for more easily.

2. 200-word minimum per page

Quite simply, search engines love content - the more content there is on a page, the easier it is for search engines to work out what the page is actually about. Search engines may struggle to work out the point of a Web page with less than 200 words, ultimately penalising that page in the search rankings.

In terms of usability, it's also good to avoid pages with very little content. A page with less than 200 words is unlikely to contain a large amount of information, so site visitors will undoubtedly need to click elsewhere to find more detailed information.

Don't be afraid to put a reasonably large amount of information on a page. Web users generally don't mind scrolling down and, provided the page provides mechanisms to aid scanning (such as employing sub-headings - see point 6 below), it shouldn't be too difficult for site visitors to locate the information they're after.

3. 100kb maximum HMTL size

If 200 words is the minimum page content size, then 100kb is the maximum, at least in terms of HMTL file size. Anything more than this and search engines may give up on the page as it's simply too big for them.

A 100kb HMTL file will take 20 seconds to download on a 56k dial up modem. Add on the time it takes for all the other parts of the page to download, such as images and JavaScript files, and you're looking at a highly un-user-friendly download time!

4. CSS used for layout

The Website of Juicy Studios (http://www.juicystudio.com) saw a six-fold increase in site visitors after switching from a table-based layout to a CSS layout. Search prefer CSS-based sites and are likely to score them higher in the search rankings because:


* The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines
* Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document
* There is a greater density of content compared to coding

Using CSS for layout is also highly advantageous for usability, as it leads to significantly faster download times.

5. Meaningful page title

If you know anything about search engine optimisation, you'll know that search engines place more importance on the page title than any other attribute on the page. If the title adequately describes the content of that page, then search engines will be able to more accurately guess what that page is about.

A meaningful page title also helps site visitors work out where they are, both within the site and within the Web as a whole. The page title is the first thing that loads up, often quite a few seconds before the content, so a descriptive, keyword-rich page title can be a real aid to help users orientate themselves.

6. Headings and sub-headings used

Search engines assume that the text contained in heading tags is more important than the rest of the document text, as headings (in theory at least) summarise the content immediately below them.

Headings are also incredibly useful for your human site visitors, as they greatly aid scanning. Generally speaking, we don't read on the Web, we scan, looking for the information that we're after. By breaking up page sections with sub-headings that effectively describe the content beneath them, scanning becomes significantly easier.

Do be sure not to abuse heading tags, though. The more text you have contained in heading tags within the page, the less importance search engines assign to them.

7. Opening paragraph describes page content

We've already established that search engines love content, but they especially love the first 25 words or so on each page. By providing an opening paragraph that adequately describes the content of the rest of the page (or the site, if it's the homepage), you should be able to include your important keyword phrases in this crucial area.

As Web users, whenever we arrive at a Web page, the first thing we need to know is whether this page has the information that we're after. A great way to find this out is to scan through the first paragraph, which, if it sufficiently describes the page content, should help us out.

8. Descriptive link text

Search engines place a lot of importance on link text. They assume that link text will be descriptive of its destination and as such, they examine link text for all links pointing to any page. If all the links pointing to a page about widgets say 'click here', search engines can't gain any information about that page without visiting it. If, on the other hand, all the links say, 'widgets' then search engines can easily guess what that page is about.

One of the best examples of this in action is for the search term, 'miserable failure'. So many people have linked to George Bush's bio using this phrase as the link text, that now, when miserable failure is searched for in Google, George Bush's bio appears top of the search rankings!

As Web users, we don't generally read Web pages word-for-word - we scan them looking for the information that we're after. When you scan through text, you can't take any meaning from the word 'click here'. Link text that effectively describes its destination is far easier to scan and you can understand the destination of the link without having to read its surrounding words.

9. Frames avoided

Frames are quite an old-school Web design technique and, although they aren't as commonplace as they once were, they do still rear up their ugly head from time to time. Using frames is one of the worst possible things you could do for your search engine ranking, as most search engines can't follow links between frames.

Even if a search engine does index your pages and Web users find you through a search engine, they'll be taken to one of the pages within the frame. This page will probably be a content page with no navigation (navigation is normally contained in a separate frame) and, therefore, they will have no way to navigate to any other page on the site!

Frames are also disadvantageous for usability as they can cause problems with the back button, printing, history and bookmarking.

Put simply, say "no" to frames!

10. Quality content provided

This may seem like a strange characteristic of a search engine optimised Website, but it's actually crucial. Search engines, in addition to looking at page content, look at the number of links pointing into Web pages. The more inbound links a Website has, all other things being equal, the higher in the search rankings it will appear.

By providing creative, unique and regularly updated content on your Website, Webmasters will want to link to you, as doing so will add value to their site visitors. You will also be adding value to your site visitors.

Conclusion:

Optimising your Website for both search engines and people needn't be a trade-off. With this much overlap between the two areas, you should easily be able to have a Website that Web users can easily find in the search engines and, when they do find it, they can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently.

Trenton Moss is crazy about Web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own Web usability and accessibility consultancy (Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.

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by Martin Lukac

Most of us been there when it comes to duplicate pages. You may have news, or articles from news companies that provide you with the news feed. Or you might have your Website designed by a third party that uses the same tools on all of their clients' Websites.

But, did you know that this duplicate content can LOWER your search engine rankings? In today's SEO (Search Engine Optimization)-driven Website world, it is important to avoid duplicate content as much as possible.

What are duplicate pages for search engines?

It is obvious that duplicate means the same as something else. For search engines, this means the same exact page, the same exact title, the same keywords etc. Search Engines send spiders -- for example Google's spider is called "googlebot," Yahoo has "yahoo slurp" -- to crawl your Website looking for and gathering content or information.

These spiders look for certain information: What is this page about? Is it relevant to your Website? etc.

If any of these search engines find the same content on a different Website, they start to compare the content. First they look when this content was indexed and from which Website it was submitted first to the search engines.

Then they start to look for links.

Are there any links on these pages that point to the same source? This way, search engine can determine who is the priority Website and they assign a higher rank to that site.

But -- what about rest of the Web-sites? What will happen to them?

If you have articles or news that are duplicate content, you Website will go lower in search engines. It may take some time until the search engines actually visit your Website and assign a duplicate content filter. But, eventually, the search engines will simply filter your Website out of their search.

What if you pay a licensing fee for these articles?

The only way for search engines such as Google to understand this, is when you E-mail them and explain your content. To do this, you will need to do a re-inclusion request.

What if you like free articles published on different article sites?

No matter what you do, the search engines will hit you with duplicate content, however, you can teach search engines about your content.

First, reduce the number of articles that you have copied. Get some new fresh well-written articles. Make sure that the majority of your content is your own and the rest is articles from other sources.

Second, articles must be related to your field. If you write about real estate, make sure you stick with real estate and finance articles only. Show search engines that you have categories and your readers benefit from these articles.

Third, do a re-inclusion request and wait.

In few weeks, you should see some movement in your site rankings. If it is not improving, reduce the number of articles again.

With free articles, it's a cat-and-mouse game all over. It's hard to figure out as how the algorithms are set in Google, for example, for duplicate content, in addition to the way Google deals with re-produced articles that you can freely post anywhere.

What if you have a Website that was designed by third party company?

Most Website companies use the same templates or similar templates. That's what they give you and rest of their clients -- the same and exact FAQ pages, About Us pages, etc.

You want to avoid this as much as possible. Always re-write these text blocks by yourself. This way, you will create unique pages for your Website.

Duplicating content is one of the biggest mistakes many Webmasters make when it comes to creating their Websites. Always try to create your own posts and, if you really want to expand your article base, make sure you provide valuable content to your users, not just another article Website.

Engine Promoter, (www.EnginePromoter.com) is a search engine marketing Website for search engine optimization and Website submission. Promote your Website and get top rotating positions on over 250+ search engines, including a niche Website submission. Engine Promoter also operates #1 Shopping Online and www.RateEmpire.com.

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by Graham Jones

Every day, you can read stories about people who have made a fortune online. Being an Internet entrepreneur is clearly attractive. You can work at home, you can choose your own hours and, so it seems, you can take truckloads of cash to the bank.

Yet, in spite of the successes we hear about, most people who try their hand at being an Internet entrepreneur fail.

They buy all the E-books and audio CDs that contain instructions from the "gurus." They attend teleseminars, Internet marketing conferences and even sign up for one-to-one coaching programs.

Yet, in spite of the thousands they spend on their own education, they still don't make the millions their mentors achieve.

So -- why is that?

Why is it that only a tiny proportion of would-be Internet entrepreneurs actually make the grade? It's been estimated that only 2% of people who try their hand at Internet marketing succeed. The rest keep trying, without any real success.

The factor that marks out the top entrepreneurs from the rest is one of attitude; that's all. What the millionaire online entrepreneurs do is treat the entire activity as a proper business. They have meticulous plans, they engage in detailed market research and they monitor every aspect of their online work, so they can improve on their results each day.

In other words, the top Internet marketers don't just "play at it;" they take it very seriously.

Yes, some of them don't work full time. But, when they do work, they work hard. They don't just tinker at things, trying an E-mail campaign here, an ad there and the occasional request to add a link to their Web site. Instead, they have specific targets they wish to achieve and then they write detailed plans about how they will go about achieving that goal.

Furthermore, the successful Internet entrepreneurs are focused on what they do. They don't try and sell one E-book today, an audio on a different subject tomorrow and a report on something else next week. While they may have several different products, they will focus their efforts, one at a time.

If you're trying to make money online and don't have the same success as your Internet marketing heroes, you could try the following:

1. Focus on what you really want to achieve
2. Choose just one product or service
3. Set targets for your sales on an annual, monthly and weekly basis
4. Work out the ways you will reach those targets
5. Do one thing at a time in your list of activities designed to achieve your targets
6. Monitor your results and adapt your work accordingly
7 Learn from what you achieve and use that knowledge in future projects

Working on just one product at a time may seem time-consuming, but it will pay dividends in the long run. Further advice can be found at http://www.magicformulabook.com

Graham Jones is an Internet psychologist who helps people make more money online. http://www.grahamjones.co.uk.

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by Joe Thompson

It is important that you conduct your due diligence before settling on one particular merchant credit card processing account provider. The reasons are obvious. You certainly don't want to be stuck paying high monthly fees. Plus, I'm sure you wouldn't want to overpay on a processing solution.

Don't let price be the only deciding factor, though! We'll look at this in a minute.

Never hurry through when trying to find a merchant account. If you move too fast, you will surely miss out on a really great deal. I can't stress this enough. Don't wait until one week before opening your doors to customers, to find a merchant account provider. Not only would you miss out on a good deal but, in some cases, it can take up to a week to approve your application once its been submitted.

Three main factors should be considered when choosing a merchant account provider (in no particular order):

* Integrity of the provider
* Price
* Customer Service

We'll look at each determining factor, in detail, so you can get the scoop on what to look for.

Integrity of the Merchant Account Provider

Don't automatically assume a provider is legitimate, just by what they have posted on their Website or what they might have conveyed to you over the telephone. The merchant account industry has a number of ruthless and greedy sales representatives who are more interested in themselves then helping you.

Here are some red flags to watch out for and suggestions to test a providers integrity:

* Repeatedly getting an answering machine every time you call.
* Representative seems to give you the run-around every time you ask them a question about rates or their agreement.
* If they use one of those free Web hosting services for their Website and/or a free domain name (i.e. www.xyz.com/user/4876/5thave/index.html), look the other way. If they can't afford a real domain name and website then they shouldn't be in business.
* They don't post all their rates and fess on their Website.

Scrutinize their merchant agreement, go over it with a fine tooth comb and question anything that appears "loose" or suspicious. You certainly don't want to get caught in a loophole.

Make sure their Website clearly shows what bank(s) they represent. It is unlawful for a merchant account provider not to show what banks they represent on their Website. Visa and MasterCard crack down hard on those who don't.

Search the Better Business Bureau, consumer reports, or online newsgroups for any unsatisfactory remarks made about the company.

Top Notch Customer Service is Paramount

Don't get carried away by great rates and forget about customer service. Customer service is king for long-term success and smooth transaction processing. You don't want to be plagued with busy signals and long hold times. Your time is precious and downtime will cost you money.

Before signing up with a company, try out their customer service number. Give it a ring and ask them a few questions. Take note of their attitude -- do they seem interested in wanting to help you? Are their answers fully-detailed, yet easy to understand?

Some aspects that should be met for superior customer service:

* Reliable availability (and yes, even on holidays, if possible. Definitely if your business operates 365 days a year!)
* Hold time of 5 minutes or less
* Friendly, courteous representatives who are knowledgeable
* A toll-free number

One last note before we move on -- don't get conned by providers who say the reason they charge high rates is because of the superior customer support they give, that other companies don't. Sure -- a slight price increase (most likely, never), but don't go overboard. Customer service is important, but shouldn't cost you hundreds more than with another provider.

This type of scam is just so they can fill up their pockets more.

Joe Thompson is founder of Thompson Merchant Services - http://www.thompsonmerchant.com, a Chase Paymentech Strategic Partner and provider of credit card, debit card, check, and gift card processing services.

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by Johnny Albertson

Establishing yourself as the expert in your field will help you gain both recognition and respect. That recognition and respect transfers directly to your company. If people trust that you truly know what you're talking about, they will feel good about investing in your product.

How to Gain Recognition

There are countless vehicles through which you can brand yourself as an expert. Budgets tend to limit what most companies can do, however. While television and radio appearances will reach the greatest number of people and are also the most personal, most companies can't afford such an endeavor.

Newspapers, magazines, and other publications are a more cost effective way of gaining exposure.

The Internet has become an increasingly popular place for business owners to showcase their expertise. The opportunities for brand establishment on the Internet are countless.

A Website is the best place to start. Build a professional looking site with sound and informative content and you'll have a source of expert information to direct customers to. It is wise to upload a variety of self-written material to that Website. Whether it's E-books or articles, good writing commands respect.

Remember that it is okay to give away some of your precious knowledge free of charge. Offer the customer something useful up-front and they will label you as a legitimate source to go to for whatever your company may offer.

Branding on the Internet

Once your Website is in good shape, it's time to attract some visitors. Article marketing is one way to do this. Appearing as an expert in these self-written articles, published on various sites, will give readers the option of linking back to your site.

Article marketing is an especially effective way to gain expert status because it gives you the ability to dispense a small number of articles to a huge number of content-rich sites. The more places your name pops up, the more people will be exposed to your site and product.

You can be assured you have risen to an expert level in the eyes of consumers once these associations are made.

Another way to display your expertise is through online forums and blogs. This is a bit more casual than article writing. It allows you to remain in the first person and talk candidly with interested Web surfers. The conversational tone used in such settings will put many potential customers at ease.

Not only will they view you as an expert, they'll also feel connected to you as a real human being. Similarly, such an environment gives customers the chance to ask questions as well as giving you the opportunity to back up your product in the face of criticism.

What to Highlight

While the language you use and the information you present is most important when it comes to branding, there are other things to consider. Perhaps most vital are your credentials. Related degrees, certifications, licenses and accreditations that you may have are always good to highlight.

For instance, at the bottom of an article you have written about your clown entertainment business for a circus magazine, you might include a small blurb that says something like the following: "Tom Jones received an M.A. in the Creative Arts from Bozonion University. He is a licensed Balloon Animal Artist as well as being certified in professional stilt-walking. Mr. Jones has been successfully entertaining for over twenty-five years."

Find the right places to gain recognition. Put yourself out there and command respect through that exposure. Highlight your achievements and successes. Branding yourself as an expert is all about getting other people to recognize something about you that you already know.

It's your business and you know your industry. Get out there and showcase your expert talents!

Johnny Albertson is a musician, blogger and writer. Visit his blog, Beatin' the Blues (http://www.beatintheblues.blogspot.com/) for more insights and pearls of wisdom. Johnny is a big fan of Article Marketer (http://www.articlemarketer.com/), an online article distribution service.

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by Helen Hecker

With careful planning you can market, promote, and get (free) publicity (publicity is always free) on a limited budget; you can take the cheap and easy way to success. Whether you've just published a book, or have a book that isn't selling, now is the time to get to it; start marketing today!

Send out the same press release to the editor of your local daily newspaper every week until you are called for an interview or are written up. Your book press release should not be written as you would a sales letter or flier, it should be written for the editor and tell about your book in a factual way. No opinion or glowing remarks. Make sure your press release spells out the 'who, what, where, when, and why.'

Make sure you have at least one good press release, written in AP style, that you can send out for the lifetime of your book. Mail a press release to all the trade journals in your field over and over again; you can use the same release. When picked up by wire services, a press release can easily end up generating hundreds of mentions for your book.

Press releases can generate thousands of dollars in sales when picked up by national trade or print media. Don't underestimate the value of a good press release for making book sales.

Find a non-exclusive distributor with a good reputation to carry your book for the book store trade, as well as for other retailers. Contact any companies, corporations or organizations that might use your book for promotions; offer significant discounts for volume orders or, for thousands of copies, offer them for a small amount above your book production costs.

Place free ads periodically for your book's Website on Craigslist, in different categories, to drive even more free traffic to your Website.

Contact non-bookstore booksellers and offer to leave books on consignment. Be your own publicist and send a press release along with a review copy of your book to publications in your book's genre and to book review magazines. Offer to trade writing a monthly column in a trade publication in your books' genre, in return for display ads on the same page.

Your sales letter or flier should include an eye-grabbing headline, the benefits to the buyer, the book features, book sales information and testimonials.

Remember to make sure your book is listed in Books-in-Print; don't assume it's already listed. Every day it's important to focus on a variety of marketing approaches.

Make sure not to overlook the Internet; get yourself interviewed or profiled for sites both about writing, publishing and about the topics covered in your book. Market your book to your number one market first, and then go after the secondary markets. Try giving away one of your books in a raffle at a local function to get more book recognition.

Get as many testimonials about your book as possible, from experts in the field relating to your title, not customers; use on your fliers and back of books. I've seen publishers lose a lot of money paying for expensive display ads, so beware if you do this; I don't advise it in the beginning -- get your feet wet first so you know what you're doing.

Make sure to promote and market your book each and every day, both online and offline. Create an online contest and list it in online contest directories to drive traffic to your Website.

Use your book promotion and book marketing dollars wisely; go after the free and cheap resources daily. Make sure to test, test, and test some more before you lay out large sums of money. The success of any book marketing effort depends on a good book and just plain hard work; its been done many times before and you can do it too.

For more book marketing tips (http://www.twinpeakspress.com/) and information on selling more books, go to http://www.TwinPeaksPress.com , founded in 1982, specializing in help for authors, self publishers, E-book and book publishers with tips, advice and resources, including information on media, library and other mailing lists, and press releases - online, wire service and offline distribution (http://www.twinpeakspress.com/)

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by Tyler James Ellison

The first thing you need to do when writing a press release to help drive targeted traffic to your Website is to put away your advertising glasses and put on your journalism cap. If your release sounds like advertising, it will not be read by many people and will be accepted by even fewer distributors.

You must sound like an objective third party as you write and it needs to sound like you have nothing to gain from the people who choose to visit your Website.

You should also tell an interesting story. It is a bad idea to go on blabbing about the features of the product or service on the Website you're promoting. That just doesn't qualify as interesting news.

What does qualify is a success story? Telling how a real person had a real problem that your product or service solved is very interesting and is way better than any ad you could buy.

You should also use statistics in your release as much as possible. Keep it simple, unless you plan to submit it to a technical journal, but showing real numbers does a lot to back up your claims and win you credibility.

Compare two example headlines for a moment. The first one says, "Lives saved in burning building." The second one says, "47 lives saved in burning building." It's obvious that the second is much more interesting. The number allows people to understand the scope of the event in much greater detail.

There is a right way to slip a little advertising into your press release. This sounds like I'm doubling back on myself, but not really. Don't include promotional language in the main body of the press release, but do include it as if quoting an expert on the subject.

Quoting somebody else does nothing to hurt your reputation as a writer and, if the quote is relevant, then it deserves to be included. Quote yourself, if you have to, but include quotes as the subtle way of getting a little advertising into your press releases.

Finally, when you write press releases online, usually the company will want to charge you to include clickable links with keywords embedded. You can save money by giving up the keywords in your clickable link and simply state somewhere, in the body of the release, the full URL of the Website you're promoting.

This will often (although not always) get your link, clickable, on the publication pages, without having to pay. You sacrifice the benefits of having keyword backlinks for Search Engine Optimization purposes but, if your budget is tight, then this is an excellent workaround.

There are plenty of places to submit for free, such as ArriveNet, I-NewsWire, Free-Press-Release, and OpenPr. Do some searching on your own for publications that are specific to your niche and you can submit there.

You should avoid getting your hopes up with this method, but persistence will get you one or two chances, which you can later refer to for credibility purposes. This will enhance your Website conversion ratio dramatically and you will start attracting links and traffic you never even tried to target!

Tyler Ellison is a successful entrepreneur who teaches automated marketing strategies (http://www.youcanworkthenet.com/) and encourages others to join the community at Little Guy Co-op (http://www.littleguyco-op.com/).

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by Karen Hurd

If you are marketing online, it's essential that you know how to write effective ad copy. If you can string two sentences together, you can learn to write effective ad copy.

Best advice -- "Enter the conversation already going on in your prospect's head."

People don't care what you're selling. They care if you can solve their problem, or meet their need. Talk about what they want to buy, not what you want to sell.

1. Use a hand written letter on your ad copy instead of text. Write the ad on a piece of paper, scan it and publish the ad on your Web page. Adding a personal touch will always increase your sales.

2. Publish a list of famous and respected customers who have bought from you on your ad copy. People are more likely to think that, if these people bought from you, they should also trust your business and purchase your products. Make sure to get their permission first. Local personalities and celebrities count!

3. Show "before" and "after" photos for your products on your Web page copy. Show the problem picture and then, beside it, show the picture of the resolution to the problem when they use your product.

4. Need more testimonials? Hold a contest: the top five people with the best testimonial get their product order for free. Boost your sales!

5. Include an article or review that has been written about you or your business with your ad copy. This will show people that your business is respected and will increase your credibility. To get the article, send press releases with pictures to the local paper. Make sure your press release is in the paper's best interest, not yours!

The paper won't do a story on your business, unless they think it will matter to their readers. Getting published will get you the publicity you need.

6. When you offer free bonuses in your ad copy, also list the dollar value beside each bonus. People will feel they're getting a good deal and it will increase the value of your product. Keep it honest. The good feelings and excitement of the bonus will turn to cynicism and distrust if your customer feels the value of the bonus was inflated just to get the sale. Would the bonus truly excite you?

7. Include your own picture on your ad copy. This will show people that you're not hiding behind your ad copy and will increase their trust. Also, include your contact information below the picture and a brief statement or quote. Got kids and pets? Include a family picture too.

8. Tell your potential customers on your ad copy that you will donate a percentage of their purchase price to specific charity. This will show them you really care about the people. They may just buy your product to donate to the charity.

Speaking of donating to charity, set up a program where customers can refer charities.

9. Ask your potential customers plenty of "yes" and "no" questions in your ad copy. The questions should remind them of their problem and make them think about what will happen if they don't purchase your product.

10. Tell your potential customers they will receive a free prize if they find the five words in your ad copy that are misspelled or spelled backwards. The longer you can keep someone reading your copy the greater chance of them purchasing.

And -- test, test, test. Keep making adjustments until you are getting the result you want. You can write the cleverest copy, but if you ain't getting the action, the copy is a waste of time. You'll be surprised at how the simplest changes can sometimes increase results significantly.

Karen Hurd is a former Marketing executive. She's been a top producer in network marketing since 1988. She is a writer, teacher & wellness educator. She lives in Virginia, with her husband & 5 children. Karen built her business while her children slept, and now she makes money while she sleeps. Home business ideas (http://www.squidoo.com/ezmoney) MLM Maniac:

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by Jeff Mulligan

The other day, I was talking to a guy at the health club I just joined. (Never had time when I was working for someone else.)

We started talking about our personal trainers. If you aren't familiar with the term, these are fitness experts who are educated to design work-out routines based on an individuals strengths, needs and goals.

Anyway, Rick said something that struck me right between the eyes. "I got so confused reading all the books and fitness magazines. Everyone has a different opinion of what works the best. I finally figured if I was going to work out, I might as well pick one expert, listen to them and follow their program."

Later, as I was driving my sore body home, I thought about how appropriate Rick's comment was to Internet Marketing.

Everyone's an expert. (Even people who have yet to sell their first eBook.) And there are a million programs, books, secrets, techniques and tactics that will work for you.

The problem is, you can easily fall into what my favorite business school professor called, "Analysis Paralysis".

That's where a lot of people are stuck.

They keep reading, and it gets in the way of actually doing something.

***** I was guilty *****

I was guilty of this, too. I must have bought several hundred dollars worth of books and courses before I found what worked for me.

Fortunately, the expert I decided to follow was, in hindsight, an excellent choice. And by following his advice and listening to his ideas, I have built up a couple of successful income streams.

My point isn't that my "guru" is the