Blogs as marketing tools for small and medium sized businesses

Times are changing. In the highly competitive marketplace, small and medium sized business entities (SMBs) veer away from the traditional to more creative and interactive approaches to doing business. Opportunities now spring from new markets, new consumer segments and new marketing tools exemplified by websites specifically business blogs.

Understanding Business Blogs

A blog, short for weblog, is a website in which journal-like entries called posts are written on an ongoing basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. New posts appear at the homepage so visitors can read what is new. It is an easy, frequently updated online journal, focused around a topic, industry or personality. Authoring a blog or adding an article to a blog is called blogging while the person who posts these entries is known as a blogger. Typically, a blog is composed of hypertext, images and links to other web pages, audio, video and other files. A distinct feature of a blog is that it allows readers to write their reactions or comments to what was written in the blog post. Another wonderful thing about a blog is that a blogger can update his blog thru a special type of blogging software called a blog tool instantly from any Internet connection on any computer. He just types his entry into a simple online form and the entry is readily available on the web for worldwide readers to see.

Over the years, blogs have evolved from simple, personal online journals to effective tools for augmenting business communications. Along the way, search engines like Google and Yahoo were displaying popular media blogs produced by journalists, in most cases, appearing above other search result rankings. Propelled by this discovery, companies started writing blogs to provide relevant information about their business to potential customers to visit their sites.

What then is a business blog? It is a blog about a business. It is an organized journal about a company’s products or services. A business blog provides specific news, statistics, product releases, and other relevant information related to the company to prospective customers starting a business blog and providing these information give potential customers enough reasons to visit a company’s website. Just imagine prospective clients visiting a company’s blog periodically without the company having to spend hefty amounts of money on advertising and promotion. As they say, give readers valuable pertinent information and they will come. Moreover, customer service issues may be addressed using a blog.

A business blog is best viewed as an addition to a website. If a company has a website, a business blog is just embedded in it. For small and medium sized businesses, business blogs help put a personal touch on an otherwise bland business site. A business blog can be an excellent marketing tool to support a main business, to provide value, build healthy relationships with potential clients and thus create personal brand and image.

Blogging as a Marketing Tool

Business blogging provides a way for companies and readers to meet on common ground and discuss ideas, products and services in the hopes of building an audience that can become customers. A business blog provides a cost-effective alternative to having a website. For small and medium sized business entrepreneurs without the time and the means to set up a website, business blogging offers an inexpensive tool to herald the company’s presence on the powerful Internet.

Business blogs provide SMBs with an avenue to share their expertise and knowledge with a bigger audience. Both online and offline small and medium sized businesses can use blogs to take their products and services to a wider audience increasing web traffic and boosting sales. The fact is business blogging is fast becoming a sustainable marketing strategy for any online marketer. There are numerous ways a business can benefit from a blog.

An effective business blog can help give a human face to a business. Blogs bring a personal dimension to the web. Blogs make business sites more personal. Since blogs are updated by individuals, the “voice” of the blogger will resonate through. This will assure potential customers that there are real people behind the blog engaging them in real conversations. Blogs can be opinionated, informative, at other times infused with humor thus eliciting better response from target audience.

A business blog if used productively can improve customer service. It provides instant customer feedback through comments. It allows one’s audience to comment on a post and create a dialogue with them. A blog can act as a question and answer forum. Customers can post questions and receive instant replies. An effective business blog functions as a central knowledge base of articles, tutorials, product development status, and other relevant product or service information. This is good customer service.

A business blog keeps an archive of older posts organized by date and categorized by topic. This gives the target audience easier access to information. With business blogs, it is also easy to add new information on a regular basis. Frequent updates in the form of fresh new posts mean visitors will have all the reasons to keep coming back thus building loyal readers – best potential clients.

A business blog can increase the chances of prospective clients to visit a company’s website. For a start, visitors to a business blog can be redirected to the company’s main site through links and special offers. Use of relevant keywords and popular links to specific sales pages improve search engine ranking of both the business blog and the main website. Just like the main website, top search result rank equals traffic. With more and more people turning to the all-powerful Internet to search for products and services, it is essential for small businesses to be easily crawled by search engines. Since search engines thrive on new content, the more likely the search engines are going to visit the blog and share it with the world.

Regularly posting valuable content on a business blog builds company credibility and creates sound business reputation. A business blog can help project a company as an expert in a chosen business area. Customers feel more comfortable transacting business with a reputable company.

A business blog can be an avenue to introduce company products or services. Ideally, a blog is not about selling. A blog can be used to mention new products or services and direct visitors to the company’s main website in the process generating more sales. Interestingly, several advertising programs such as Google Adsense allow companies to monetize their business blogs and generate extra revenue.

However, a business blog is not urgent but important for small and medium sized businesses. A business blog alone is not enough to market a company product or service. But it is good investment for startup businesses to have conversations with customers and prospective clients. Business blogging is an effective way to start conversing with visitors interested in ones products or services but it is in no way to be viewed as a stand alone strategy. Yes, business blogging can do wonders. But it is not going to work on its own. A business blog is most effective when it is used in conjunction with other online communication tools such as e-mail, press release, pay per click, company websites, to name a few.

Setting up and maintaining a great business blog that visitors will find useful and relevant is just like having an effective built-in public relations staff that will spread the word about the business.

As a final thought, starting a business blog is easy but transforming it into a marketing tool that drives traffic and sales to a business takes time, dedication and consistency.

Get paid to surf the internet

One of the fastest growing methods for people to earn money online is by being paid to surf the Internet. There is a vast array of different programs to choose from, and all of them work in a similar way to allow you to earn money simply by surging the Internet as you normally would.

Almost anyone can get paid to surf the Internet, and all that you will need to do is download a small piece of software onto your computer. This will then display adverts appropriate to the websites that you are visiting from a selection of carefully selected companies.

Whether you are simply using your computer to check your emails, or are researching a paper for a university course, by signing up for a paid to surf program, you can be earning money as you navigate around the web.

When you sign up for a paid to surf program, the actual return is quite small, although you do not actually have to do anything extra. Where you can start to earn a great deal of cash is through referring other people to join the program with you. You will be providing these other folk with a chance to boost their online income too, and can even get a referral fee for every single other person who signs up for the program as a result.

The simplicity with which you can earn through the most basic types of paid to surf programs makes them an extremely popular way of making money online, but there are also more complex programs available too, which offer much better returns.

Some networks of paid to surf users are also used by advertisers and website owners in order to test the functionality of their programs. The surfers will typically spend time looking through the content of a website in order to make sure that all the links work properly, and all the content is appropriate and well written. These users may either have to submit a short report to the webmaster detailing their findings, or simply have a piece of software on their computer that is able to track their behavior to make sure that every thing is working properly.

The latest paid to surf system is also the most profitable for users with AdSense and Amazon partner IDs: Radiux ( radiux. com). Radiux does not require any software installation but let’s you earn money from your regular Internet usage, such as Google search and EBay purchases. This way even Internet users without web presence are able to participate in revenues from online commission systems.

Conclusion: if you are not using every possible option to make extra money from your online behavior you are missing the boat!

Internet search and seo

Internet Search

For the last decade the Internet has emerged itself into an integral part of our everyday life. What previously was mostly a network of research institutions has become an unprecedented medium for commercial and social use. With the number of web pages now exceeding 12 billion it is extremely difficult to find information without using search engines.

Search engines appeared almost immediately once the WWW was born. A pioneering search engine called Archie was created in the University of Montreal in 1990 and was used to search files located on public FTP sites. The first search engine created to crawl and index text files on the web, World Wide Web Wanderer or Wandex, was introduced in 1993 in MIT and worked on principals similar to those used by the modern web search engines.

However it was not until late 90s when search engines have become the major tool to find information on the Internet. Before Internet directories such as Yahoo! or BestOfTheWeb were used to locate web pages. But it didn't take long for web users to recognize the usefulness of the Internet search, once indexing and ranking algorithms have reached a state where search engines were able to quickly return highly relevant results

Search Results Relevancy

It is all about the relevancy of results. In their infancy search engines were utterly vulnerable to abuse. Originally search engines used to index file names and later meta-tags. It doesn't take much to stuff file names and meta-tags with popular keywords which are irrelevant to the document's content. When a user queried a search engine with a keyword he received results that couldn't satisfy him. That is why Internet directories with pages classified into directories by human reviewers were far more useful than the search engines of those days.

The problem of relevancy has become increasingly important with the growing commercial use of the Web. The profits of commercial websites depend on their exposure and if there is anything that can help improve the exposure in search results - it must be done. And the first attempts to influence the search results by using popular but not relevant keywords to drive more traffic were made.

With their increasing computational and storage capacity search engine have become able to index the entire content of a page. But it was still possible to abuse search results by using excessive keyword stuffing, hidden keyword-rich text or many other spammy techniques. Basing solely on the page content it was impossible to ensure the relevancy of search results and more advanced ranking algorithms were introduced.

Search Engine Optimization

But even modern sophisticated search engine algorithms are not perfect and can't guarantee 100% relevancy. There still exist many loopholes that can be exploited to manipulate search results. Search results manipulation is not necessarily an unethical conduct. Consider three biggest travel websites: Travelocity. com, Expedia. com and Priceline. com. They provide booking service of a similar quality and are equally relevant for keywords like 'vacation' or 'airline tickets'. But nevertheless they rank differently in search results, and it is natural for a lower ranked site to try improving its position by using search engine optimization techniques.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is about defining what factors influence the placement of a page in search results and adjusting these factors to obtain a higher position. To optimize the relevance of a page you have to adjust keyword frequency and proximity, add keywords into headings and bold text. It must look natural though - excessive keyword stuffing might have negative effects. To increase the popularity of a page you must obtain incoming links with targeted keywords in the anchor text, and make sure that links come from authoritative pages but not from irrelevant link farms.

Search engine optimization is an extremely dynamic field. Once a loophole in ranking algorithms becomes known and widely used, search engines change their algorithms to neutralize its effect. Every algorithm update can drastically affect positions and traffic of websites utilizing aggressive crash and burn optimization strategies. Such strategies are based on the most recently discovered loopholes and tricks and are able to put your pages into top positions quite quickly. Their effect however lasts only to the next algorithm update.

Another far more time-consuming approach is the creation of websites with high quality content following so-called Google quality guidelines. This approach emphasizes the website's value for users and persuades against using tricks to manipulate search results. In short - good websites eventually will rank high. But it takes years and tons of effort to make a site popular this way. Some sites are by their nature difficult to promote this way. For example few grocery stores can afford turning their websites into top Internet grocery portals; it just wouldn't be worth the effort.

SEO alone can't guarantee a lasting effect. Not using SEO at all requires too much effort to promote a site. The wise way to make a website popular is make sure that it is useful for users, obtain quality incoming links and do not forget to fine tune your pages focusing the targeted keywords. Follow the famous Brett Tabke's Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone - after four years it is still a valid approach.

Multi-level marketing business - general study

The following is based on a study done by a friend and his partners in the early 1990’s; indeed, things advanced to such a stage that they actually got involved with one of the companies as full time distributors.

The principle, while economically sound, must have core strength at its base and not fall into a well documented type of business known as pyramid selling, which became popular in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

When I say core strength, I mean that at its foundation any business must have a product that sells!

This may sound ridiculously obvious however a major problem occurring with many of the products marketed through this method, in their experience, has been that the products simply did not penetrate into the market successfully.

When joining one of the companies that participate in MLM, one is generally pressed upon to purchase materials for personal use and to buy stock for distribution to further people.

Additionally, whilst the figures shown in the literature are very impressive, to attain these figures it is imperative to introduce other people to the business thereby gaining a percentage of their material sold.

As that person introduces further people to the business, one then gains a percentage of sales from that person also.

Depending on the company, the revenue continues for a certain amount of levels, hence the name multi level marketing.

The major drawback that they discovered was that to attain the desired figures, one had to concentrate on recruiting more and more people to the business with the result being that nobody was really concentrating on selling product.

This is why pyramid selling was made illegal - quite simply no product was moving at the bottom end and the only people making good money were on the top level and able to benefit from many peoples ‘efforts, whether or not product was moving.

Unfortunately for the people on the lower levels they often parted with considerable sums of money unaware that the end product was either non-marketable or in some cases did not even exist! After this, the only way out for these people was to rope more people into the business on levels beneath them and thus recuperate some of their money.

Multi level marketing, while not crooked in this way or illegal, still carries with it the problem of having to recruit other people into the business to attain the dizzy financial heights projected by the companies.

I know several of the companies that we looked at in the early nineties, including the one they became involved with, have disappeared without trace and one never hears nor sees the products anywhere - is this coincidence? Since the companies were extremely well capitalised, did the owners realise that their products had a very short shelf-life and this was the best way to juice any profitability possible in a very short time?

Without sounding too sceptical, it does seem to me that this was the case since, as they mentioned earlier, the products are never seen and the company is never heard of.

You be the judge.

Network marketers is it useful to combine selling and recruiting

The "mistake" of mixing product offer with recruitment is one of the prime reasons why a downline fails. It doesn't work, it's never worked, and it never will work.

The cynic in me says that the reason it's taught that way is that the product is so overpriced that the MLM company fully realizes the only people who'll buy it is recruits at "wholesale" price. In truth, there is no true consumer market for these products.

There are a whole bundle of practices that many MLM companies teach that are counter-productive to survival, let alone to success. And I have to say that even though 95% of mainstream small business fails, it still provides better strategies than MLM teaches.

I fervently believe that mainstream strategies sell a lot more product, and that out of those customers you can select committed "product-o-philes" who will form a high-performing, sustainable downline. In fact most times they'll identify themselves to you. The "pull" method of marketing instead of the "push" method.

The "in your face" (or even subtle) sales pitches of MLM simply repel people. So people in network marketing really need to study how professional sales people go about networking, prospecting, and selling, and move in that direction.

Most countries have a government department which is dedicated to supporting small business and provide low-cost or free business and marketing training (e. g. Small Business Administration in the US). That can be a great place to start when you're doing your best to figure out what works, and what is basically BS.

You hear pure internet marketers talking about "the list" and "the gold is in the list". The "list" or "data base" is a list of people who've given you permission to stay in touch with them.

These are people who visit your web site for instance, and click on a form to leave their name and email address with you, specifically giving permission to email them in future.

Of course they're only going to do that if you present them with an irresistible offer, which will usually be a free information product that you've done enough research on to know that your target audience would just about walk over broken glass to get hold of.

From then on you email regularly, each time giving them more snippets of great information, demonstrating expertise, earning trust and respect, and in fact building a solid relationship with your target market.

These people are far more likely to take up offers on particular products that you might recommend. If you're sending out a newsletter, they're far more likely to click on links that take them to your web site for more information, or to actually purchase product.

The people who actually purchase from you would go on a special separate data base also, because you want to intensify your relationship with them - take it to the next level. Some of them will put themselves forward as possible recruits - perhaps not blatantly, but by writing to you with a fantastic testimonial for instance.

So the steps are:

1 Build the relationship

2 Convert some of those to sales

3 Convert some of those to recruits (and of course these recruits are more likely to have "stickability" than someone you've chosen merely because they had a pulse and $50 or whatever to sign up with).

End result: you sell a lot more product in the long run, you enjoy your target market a lot more, you build real relationships with potential recruits, and you get to pick out people who really do have the ability, the passion for the product, and the commitment to build the business. Best of all, you've already been training them in a strategy that works because they've been part of the process from the beginning. So you're going to build downlines that have a chance at not just surviving, but thriving.

You might see fellow network marketers building fast downlines with "hundreds" or claiming that, but in fact it's all BS. Most of those downlines fail right from the start. It's a lot better to build your downlines slowly and solidly, so they're sustainable and provide true ongoing passive income.

Switching broadband suppliers a guide

Being an advanced broadband user you should always keep note of latest happening in the broadband area. If your current broadband contract is at its finishing stage, switching to a better provider is sensible to do.

Migrating from providers for your beneficial should be a habit if want to be a matured or advanced broadband user. As you have already used the broadband for a term, it would have transformed you to be an advanced user and so you can confidently look out for a provider who will fulfill your current needs. Same like as a new user before, you again need to make sure that you have identified you broadband needs prior to comparing the providers and their packages.

The very fact is that migrating to another broadband provider will sure save you money on choosing a better package from the new provider. As you are familiar now with the broadband you know what all you need from a provider like speed, download limit, cost etc. Again, you have to be well known with few other terms being a user to switch your provider and one such is MAC.

What is MAC?

Most broadband providers have a code of practice designed to fasten the migration process. This works on an idea that you current provider supply you a code using which your new provider take you to their broadband without any major actions and formalities. This broadband transfer code is called Migration Authority Code or MAC. So your broadband does not get any interruption because of switching the provider and you work on it as usual.

So when you are in a situation of changing your provider it is important not to terminate your connection with your current provider. The MAC system does the job for you with ease in much simpler and quicker way without any hassle.

Changing between Cable and ADSL

ADSL and cable being completely from different technologies, instead migration you simply need to terminate the existing service and start with another. Also, when you are suppose to terminate your ADSL service, confirm with the termination date so that you can avoid too much of having both type of services at same time for which you may need to pay.

For switching from cable to ADSL, you need to have a phone line and your local exchange should be an ADSL converted. You should confirm this before starting your switch.

How much time it take to change a provider?

Approximately, it takes a week of time to change to new provider and this can vary among providers. You should make sure the transfer date of the service with your new provider. Once after the confirmation of your change, your new provider has to take the necessary actions to avoid further subscriptions being billed from your old provider.

Finally, steps for switching

1. Do an extensive search and find out the best package, matching your current needs.

2. Contact your current provider to inform them of your termination of service and request your MAC code. However, this won’t be so easy because they may negotiate to keep their business intact with you.

3. Keep in mind, don’t terminate your existing service instantly if you are switching to another ADSL provider.

4. Found your new provider! Submit the MAC code to your new provider and take up the new service.

5. During, be careful that the older and new service stays together at same time, billing you needlessly.

What next? Soon, enjoy your new broadband internet with better comfort as you desired.

Re you doomed to failure in your business

Are you doomed to failure in your business? Many will tell you that. After all, most small business ventures fail sometime within the first five years. Many people, sometimes even though well meaning, will try to discourage you from starting your own business. They will say you have to have a natural aptitude and talent for being in business. Or they might say, you have to be a born entrepreneur. It’s your choice whether to believe them or not, but I say if you are motivated to start your own business chances are you have these qualities to some degree already.

Sure, there ARE skills that you absolutely need to have to be a successful businessperson. The good news though, is there are many ways to develop those skills along the way. Instead of focusing on those skills at first, you should be thinking about the qualities inherent to all good entrepreneurs.

First is perseverance. Remember your research paper/project you had to write back in school? Well this is your research project on steroids! At the beginning, you may learn many new things and concepts from your research that require further study and understanding. You move forward slow, but steady. The danger being, that you give up just before you find the particular information you are seeking. If you keep plugging away and compiling the necessary information, you will end up with very nice finished product. This persistence and perseverance is the same thing you need in business. You must keep at it until you get to the point of success.

In the business world, perseverance certainly can take you a long way but a second valuable attribute is for one to have thick skin. Needless to say, along your journey of building your business you are going to come across many individuals that would like nothing more than to see you fail so they can succeed. You will without a doubt encounter those who have nothing good to say and are only negative about what you need to do with your business. You must take most of it with a grain of salt otherwise it won’t be long before you are ready to hang it up and close shop. Take the constructive advice and tune out the completely negative.

Your ultimate success in your business venture will require perseverance, a thick skin, and finally, the ability to deal with… FAILURE! That’s right. Failure. Many of the most successful people in business and in life have had to deal with many more failures than you might imagine. What separates people like Bill Gates who in the 1970s was a Harvard dropout? Or Elvis Presley who after his first show was told “you ain’t going nowhere, son”. Or Walt Disney who was fired by a newspaper editor because he lacked good ideas? The most successful people in life and in business were failures multiple times in their efforts to be successful. What separated them is that they did not give up. You shouldn’t either. If you have just one of the three qualities I have spoken of here, make it your ability to deal with failures by seeing them as part of your success journey.

If you will persevere through setbacks, let the negativity of people around you regardless of their intentions roll off of your back, and DO NOT quit despite the failures that will come your way in your business, you will not be able to keep from succeeding. Go ahead and FAIL your way all the way to the top!

To Your Failures Leading To Your Success,

Todd

Search for an internet business

When beginning a search for a profitable internet business most budding entrepreneurs will start thinking about selling a product online. After all, that is the business model most of us know. The store down the street has shelves stocked with items ready to be purchased. This is a system that we know works.

The first step in exploring this type of e-commerce would be to go to the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask. com).Just plug in the items you would be excited to sell and watch the results roll in. There will be thousands of websites popping onto your computer screen prepared to provide virtually any item a customer could desire.

Do you have a fresh prospective on an item that would entice customers to buy from you?

Do you have a line on a local or unique product that may not be universally available?

Are you able to purchase and store an inventory for your new business?(There are companies that will enable you to use their inventory as your own, and even ship directly to your customers called "Dropshippers")There is, however, a profit penalty to be paid for dealing with one item at a time. Buying in bulk is less expensive and leads to greater profit.

If you are still considering this type of e-commerce I commend you for your perseverance.

I'll assume you have chosen a product that you will be thrilled to deal with each day, and that you believe will be popular enough for others to covet. I'll also assume that you have handled the inventory issues. Now I have one more hurdle for you to consider. How will you construct a website with all the technical features needed to enable customers to select and pay for their purchases? Once all of these questions are answered you are well on your way to selling online.

There is another method to making money online. These are called "Affiliate programs".

These work when a customer clicks from your website to the product suppliers website and purchases a product they handle. You make a commission for referring this customer.

The best part for a new e-business owner is that your website can be built for you FREE.

All You Have to do is advertise your website so customers can find the products through you.

Direct response tips for increasing your response

The most important of all direct response tips I could give you is this… your list is the most important part of your entire direct mail campaign. Who you mail to is much more important than what you mail them. So if your campaign has proven successful, mail to other lists that are similar to your target market.

Here is another one of the more important direct response tips that you should be aware of… it’s to change up your offer from time to time. If you change it up, it will be constantly fresh and the same people won’t be getting the same offer time and time again, thus diluting your response rate.

Improve upon your creative. Perhaps your rate of response is suffering due to the fact that your package is not so attractive. Why not try something completely different? Next time, mail out a post card instead of a letter. There are so many ways you can change things up and keep your offer fresh.

You may also want to try and mail out a different time from what you were previously doing. Are you sending out the offers at the same time of the week, month, year, etc.? If so, change up the frequency, mail more, mail less, just change it up.

Here is a must, of all the direct response tips, this one can have a great impact, because it’s the ability to offer your clients other payment options. Decades ago all we could accept were checks and MO’s. However, today just about any business can get a merchant account and accept credit cards. Give your customers more options and they will use them.

Another one of my favorite direct response tips is to offer a premium. Such as a free Apple iPod as opposed to a cash discount.

Give something away for free, you’d be surprised… FREE is still a very strong word – for as overused as it can be sometimes.

Offer a money back guarantee. This will put your customer at ease and actually increase your response. Sure, you may get a refund here or there, but imagine those orders that you would have not gotten because you did not show confidence in your product to offer a guarantee?

Be credible. Know what you’re offering from top to bottom, convey that on paper and you will appear as an authority. Your customers want what you have… why should they get it from you?

Make the order process as easy as possible. Kind of like the payment options above, let them mail their order, call it in, fax it in, order online, etc.

As for the order through the sales process. Put in your call to action. You’d be surprised how many offers don’t have a call to action. That’s direct marketing 101.

Add more content to your package if results are slowing down… Change it up and see what happens, track it, test it and improve upon it.

I just gave you a few direct response tips. This is not all and everything having to do with direct response, just a tiny fraction of it. I hope to have given you an eye opener with these direct response tips, use them and increase your business today.

Burglar proof your business now

Make your business burglar proof before you suffer a break-in! Most business owners do not think about security, taking only basic steps to protect their premises until a thief strikes. Do not wait until it is too late to take action. Make your business a safer place by using simple and inexpensive ways to deter the wrong sort of people.

The Mind of a Burglar

The best way to start is to approach your business from the outside. Walk around your business and ask yourself "if I was a thief how would I break in?" "How easy is it get on to the roof?" "Are there any ladders around?" "Are the doors and windows secured?" By asking yourself these simple questions you will uncover most weaknesses in your premises.

Can you spot any easy ways for a burglar to get in? Most burglars look for easy opportunities, and if your premises seem secure they will move on the next building.

Light Up Your Premises

Thieves like to work in darkness. By installing sensor lights around your premises, this alone is good enough to deter many opportunistic burglars. Make sure that all the doors and windows are well lit because this is often the first point of call for a criminal!

Remember it is not only your premises that you have to be concerned about. You and your employees will also feel safer walking to and from your cars in winter if your car park is brightly lit.

Places to Hide

Thieves love hiding behind bushes and bins. By moving your bins and keeping your bushes short you will cut down their opportunity to sneak up on your premises. Move or remove any obvious hiding places.

Solid Doors & Locks

Make sure you check your exterior doors and windows. Thieves love hollow doors. Use solid wooded doors with decent locks. Buy decent locks for your windows, use break resistant glass and install some bars or shutters. Most thieves usually break-in through your windows and doors!

Check your Roof

After doors and windows the next place a burglar will examine is your roof. If your roof is not secure enough and easy to access then you will be forced into buying an alarm system with sensors that can monitor for any movement inside your premises. If you have windows in your roof, then make sure they are secure and the glass is tough. Add metal bars so that a thief can not just break the glass for easy access!

Buy a Safe

Buy a decent safe and make sure you bolt it on the floor. A friend of mine bought a safe but did not use the bolts provided. The thieves stole the safe! Buying a decent safe and then securely bolting it to the concrete below will ensure that your valuables are safe even if you have a break-in!

The majority of break-ins occur directly through your doors and windows. A smaller percentage of burglars come through the roof. By taking simple, inexpensive steps you can deter almost ninety percent of all burglars.

Sell a product online how to do it on online auctions

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It is essential to have a website to sell a product online. Even if that is a minisite with only one page, it must still be there. Without a website you have no platform from which to sell. Even an offline marketer needs a shop, stall or barrow to display their wares and to sell from. There is a range of website options available these days that makes internet marketing so much easier than it was at one time.

Web hosting options range from free websites that come with products ready to sell, through inexpensive options at less than $10 monthly to full blown hosting packages offering everything needed to run a modern internet business. Which you choose is up to you, but keep in mind that you will require an email service that is related to your business, and an autoresponder to automated procedures such as replying to email enquiries, and sending regular emails to a large number of people. You will also need a checkout system and a means of accepting credit card payments. You can also get all this options for free selling on online auctions websites. Good place to start on is QxBid - Free online auction website

If you cannot accept credit cards, you will be fatally restricting your business. A modern online business must be able to accept payment by credit or debit card, personal check, bank wire or transfer and PayPal or a similar popular payment method.

Once you have your website set up and running, you have to sell the product. You should design a good sales page that catches the eye, with a compelling title that offers a benefit to the prospective buyer. Typical benefits include how your product can make them money or save them money, save them time, make things easier for them or help their business. Everybody looking at an offer wants to know what's in it for them.

"Washes Whiter than White" is a feature, but "Cut Your Cleaning Time in Half" is a benefit. If you were a busy householder, what would you want - 'whiter than white' or your cleaning time 'cut in half'? Do you want something to 'Taste Lovely' or 'Work Fast'?

Provide a benefit, but make it realistic. "Make $50,000 in your first month" is a claim nobody will believe, but "Make $100,000 in your first year" is more believable. Write your headline, and then sleep on it. Look at it next day and think whether or not it would attract you. If not, then change it.

You can list the features of your product, but only while stressing the benefits that these feature provide. "Low energy use" does not have the impact of "Save 20% on your power bill". You should also make an offer to the potential customer, or prospect. Offer something free that relates to the product. If you are selling bicycles offer free maintenance for a year. If you are selling a book on Search Engine Optimization, offer a free keyword research tool.

Make sure you make a call to action. Tell them what they must do to buy the product. 'Click here' or 'Click Here Now!' Make sure that you ask them to buy the product. It's amazing how effective that is. You could simply ask for their first name and email address so that you can send them further information, but ask them something. You must tell prospects what you want them to do.

In order to sell a product you have to get prospects to your website before you can tell them anything. You have to advertise, and there are many ways of doing this. Advertising is generally the biggest part of the budget of an offline company, so online companies should be no different. You should choose a few keywords for your product that have some degree of demand, and as little supply as possible.

If you know how to optimize your website for good search engine listings, you can get free traffic through organic search results for your keywords. Otherwise you can use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Two of the most effecting PPC programs are Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. You pay for each click a visitors makes on your advert, so if you word your adverts correctly, they can supply a lot of very targeted traffic, focused on the subject of your advert.

You can also advertise using article marketing and ezine adverts. Both of these can drive targeted traffic to your website. You should make sure that, no matter what route they used to get there, visitors should land on your sales page for your product. If visitors clicked on an advert for the product, they expect to see more information about it when they click.

If you know how to sell a product online, you should not find it difficult to persuade visitors to visit your sales page. The rest is up to your persuasive abilities, and of course, the product.

Issues to consider before going global

Obviously, many businessmen dream of becoming reaching the global marketplace because it has the potential to provide them with an increased profitability through reaching a large number of customers. But there are many issues you need to consider before going global because the business norms differ from country to country. And if you do manage to get pass the trade barriers such as the tariffs and the quotas that is set up by the government to protect their domestic industries, you still have to deal with the customers themselves before your products will be bough. In line with this, here are some of the most important factors you need to consider if you want to have a global reach for your business.

1. The laws – countries do have different laws that govern business practices so what may be considered legal to once country may not necessarily mean that this same practice is legal in another. It is therefore important for you to consult with local lawyers and accountants regarding the laws in their particular country.

2. The culture – every country has its own deep-rooted culture that makes it unique from other countries. You need to know the local culture even before you can promote your product effectively in the business environment.

3. The promotions – aside from the fact that you need to be sensitive to the taste and preference of the local market and be careful on the promotions that you do as not to offend them, you also need to be flexible to follow government regulations. For example, there are countries that do not put a limit on the amount of money that can be won by a local resident when a particular company holds a contest. However, in some counties the amount of earning can be restricted so you need to know about these rules and requirements even before you start your promotional strategies.

4. The locality – you should note that there are countries that have different government rules according to region. You need to be cautious in making different promotions and activities in different regions in a new territory because a practice that may be permitted in one area doesn’t necessarily mean that it will likewise be acceptable in another area even though it is in the same country.

5. The budget – penetrating another country may cost more than you are expecting because of the different legalities you have to deal with. At the start of your operations, you should also expect to encounter a lot of challenges because you are just starting to make your presence felt in a new territory.

Overall though, going global is certainly a worthwhile endeavor for any business despite the challenges it presents because it offers you a chance to make your business become more popular and more profitable.

Blogging for bucks here s how to use social network sites to promote

The social network scene has taken off like a NASA space shuttle. Thundering, powerful and never to be caught. In this article we examine how professional bloggers (those who rely on blogging for a living) can use social networking to promote their blogs.

First, in case you're new to blogging you ought to find the best way to monetise your blog - set-up some affiliate links and perhaps a few Google Adsense displays so that visitors can immediately start contributing to your blogs income.

Then, it's down to the nitty-gritty of actually promoting your blog. When it comes to promoting blogs, there are many blog owners who decide to let the search engine do the work for them. Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN use special techniques that reads the content on your website. That content is then used to rank your website with particular keywords. This means that you run a blog on graduating from high school in New York, there is a good chance that your blog will appear in searches done on New York high schools. Although many blogs are successfully ranked in search engines, not all are. That is why you are advised against relying solely on search engines, when it comes to promoting your blog.

As previously mentioned, if you love meeting with or talking to people online, there is a good chance that you belong to a social networking website or community. The individuals that you talk to and that are in your community are likely the individuals that you wish to target. Since most social networking websites work to connect Internet users who have the same goals and common interests, there is a good chance that your online friends will enjoy reading your blog. But, before they can read your blog, you have to let them know that it exists.

When it comes to promoting your blog on social networking websites, you have a number of different options. Your first option is to include a link to your blog in your community profile or profile page. This will allow other community members to checkout your blog, only if they wish to do so. The other way is to inform your online friends of your blog through private messages. Once you join a social networking website and create or join a network of friends, you should easily be able to communicate with those friends. Sending each of your friends a private message with information and a link to your blog tends to be more effective than just placing a link in your profile or on your profile page.

Although there is a good chance that you are already a member of a popular social networking website, you may not be. If you are not already a member, but would like to become one, you will need to find a social networking website to join. This can easily be done with a standard Internet search. In your search, you will likely find a number of popular network sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, and Orkut. Before becoming a community member at one of these networking sites, you may want to first examine the website to ensure that it is everything that you want it to be.

As you can easily see, there are a number of different ways that you can go about promoting your blog on online social networking websites. You never known, but, in addition to promoting your blog, you may also make new friends along the way.

Choosing a reliable web hosting service

A web hosting service is essential for anybody wishing to do business online and there is certainly no shortage of companies stepping forward to take your business. In many ways this huge range of choices for consumers is a great thing, but, it also means that making a decision on where to host your websites becomes that much more difficult.

The web hosting industry has seen its fair share of companies making big promises and under delivering time and again. The end result is a minefiled of misinformation and disappointed customers who often take it upon themselves to do everything in their power to discredit the hosting company who they feel has done them an injustice.

When you enter the web hosting arena as a new customer, you will often face the difficult task of trying to decide just what is true about the company's you investigate and what is not. On the one hand, there will be aggressive cautions against using one firm while somewhere else you will read a glowing report on their services. If you are new to the whole subject, it often feels as though you are negotiating a minefield and feel like bashing your head against a wall in sheer frustration.

Is there a simple response to the question you most want answered - 'who is the best web host for me?' Unfortunately, the answer to that is almost certainly 'no'.

No matter who you turn to for advice, there will always be a conflict of opinion arising somewhere along your avenues of enquiry. Web hosting is like that. It is an industry where some people are almost fanatical in their condemnation of a particular hosting company, and often their anger and resentment is out of all proportion to the situation that brought it on. Sometimes of course complaints are justified - the web hosting industry is far from perfect and faces few controls or official standards. Rubbing shoulders with those crying foul to anyone who will listen, are those who wax lyrical about a company, when, in point of fact, they have no experience of the company whatsoever and whose only interest is in trying to earn an affiliate commission.

Hosting companies and hosting deals come in so many different shapes and sizes that it is impossible to cover them in an introductory article such as this. However, here are a few pointers to help you when entering the very competitive world of web hosting services.

1) It seems obvious, but do your research before you buy. If you find a deal that seems to be just what you are looking for, don't let the odd dissatisfied or negative review put you off. There probably isn't a single hosting company in existence that hasn't had any bad feedback. Use your commonsense - if you find nothing but bad feedback, then it probably holds some water.

2) There is no definitive "best deal" in the web hosting arena. What you should be looking for is a package that bests suits you, both in terms of features and budget. Before you shop around, make a list of things that are important to you.

3) A lot of hosting company's work through affiliates. This should not be seen as a red flag by any means. The hugely competitive market place makes an affiliate program almost an essential requirement for these companies. You will also often find that the only way to benefit from special deals and discount coupons is to go through an affiliate.

4) Don't believe everything you read. Many disgruntled customers who have not chosen wisely, or who have failed to read a particular company's terms and conditions, bring about their own problems. This is very common in the web hosting field, and many customers try to blame their misunderstandings on the company. The more vitriolic the attacks on a particular host, the more often you should look for reasoned and calm assessments of their shortcomings. Obviously if you see nothing but bad press, you should be wary. The larger the company's customer base, the more likely you are to find complaints, but the law of averages will always make this so.

Read through some web hosting forums in search of feedback by all means, but remember that some of the invective posted by users often has little in the way of both sides of a particular story. Pay attention to those who give calm and well reasoned feedback, not those who cuss and rage.

5) If you have questions, ask the company before you sign up. This is also a good way to see how prompt and effective their customer service channels are. A good host will offer various channels of communication for their customers, usually telephone, live online support and email. 24/7 support covers a wide range of interpretations! I

6) As a new webmaster, you may have no idea of how much bandwidth or storage space you are going to need and unfortunately nobody can really give you an answer to such questions. If you are buying hosting for the first time, don't be blinded by huge numbers, because often they are meaningless. Shared hosting deals are usually perfectly adequate for those just starting out. You can always upgrade your hosting plan as your business grows - in many cases you will find that you won't need to do this for some time, so unless you are expecting to see hundreds of thousands of visitors as soon as you launch your website or blog or are going to be hosting huge amounts of data from the outset, don't worry too much about this.

7) If you are hosting a business related site, reliability and technical support are going to be major considerations. Guarantees of uptime are not always reliable, but, a company should have the confidence to be able to offer 99.9% - if they don't, whilst their honesty is to be applauded, maybe they are not the place for your business site. Excessive downtime costs money and loses you customers. Reliability is very important. If you are not operating a commercial site, this may not be quite such a vital consideration but it is reassuring to know that your site is not going to be offline when people are trying to visit you!

8) Cheapest is not always best. The temptation to control your monthly budget is a strong one and there are many very cheap deals on offer. Whilst these should not be dismissed out of hand, for business users they should be studied very carefully. Good quality hosting is not expensive, but neither is it available for pennies a month. You will find, as with most things, that the universal rule, 'you get what you pay for', applies to hosting too. Good shared hosting is still available at very reasonable prices - being cheap may cost you dear.

9) Some hosting companies are geared towards certain specialities. If you are involved in the adult industry for example, some hosts will not want your business. It is pointless to try and use a hosting company who don't want your type of website on their servers. It's not just adult sites that sometimes require specialist hosting and if you think that your online operation is in any way out of the ordinary, talk to your list of potential hosts before signing up.

10) Choosing a good hosting company at the outset will save a lot of potential grief as your business grows. Being cheap at the start may well end up costing you much more in terms of lost time and hassle a little farther down the road. Steer clear of free hosting for any serious business operation.

There are a couple of hosting companies who, in addition to their hosting services, also offer monthly recurring commissions under their affiliate programs. If you are looking to offset the costs of your web hosting, this can be a good way to do so and even to see a residual income from supporting and promoting your webhost. This is not something offered by the majority of hosts, but if it is something that appeals to you, you will find more information in the resource links quoted below.

The world of web hosting is often a confusing soup of jargon and conflicting opinion, but eventually you will have to make a decision. Hopefully these basic pointers will help to guide you towards a sensible purchase and a happier future relationship with your hosting company.

Making money with home business income opportunity

There are many ways to make money with a home business and some of them even live up to their promises. No matter what type of work you do there is a home business income opportunity for you. Whether you work at home or from home, you can find a line of work that you can do and make money doing it.

Multi-level marketing knows no boundaries, in fact when was first developed it was referred to as distributorships and a few companies were able to experience tremendous growth due to these home business income opportunities. Companies like Fuller Brush, Amway and Avon are a few of the bigger names that used multi-level marketing in their sales plan. A sale representative would work in a territory, developing other sales representatives and then they would become area managers, supervising and helping those they trained.

This representative would earn a small commission on the sales of the people they helped develop, all the while working from home. This enabled these companies to develop a national sales team with minimal expense to the company itself. This method also assured that the company’s approach to sales remained consistent as each sales representative used the same sales pitch, injecting it with their own personality, but the main pitch was written by the company and followed by everyone.

With online businesses, the process is similar with one person developing an area and working with others to become sales representatives for a company. The first person in an area will earn income from the sales of others working under them. One main difference is that with many multi-level marketing plans, there is a limit to the number of persons they can recruit to work under them.

Affiliate programs are the newest rage and they can produce a steady income stream. Many companies use affiliate marketing almost exclusively, shying from traditional advertising venues, paying only for responses from advertising. It works since you own your website and place ads on your site for other companies. When a visitor to your site clicks on one of your affiliate ads and makes a purchase, you receive a commission on the sale. If no sales are made, the advertiser does not pay for the space on your site.

For a company, having all of their ads on affiliate sites works in their favor in two ways. First, it gives their advertising visible on thousands of websites. Secondly, one of the methods used by search engines to determine ranking is the number of quality links to a site. With affiliate ads, especially those with similar content linking back to them, they can achieve a higher ranking on search engines, increasing their odds of attracting more visitors.

Getting started in the direct sales industry

I remember when I went to my first home party several years ago. Watching the rep demonstrate her products really impressed me and all I could think to myself was "I could never stand up in front of people and do that". Years later I did take the leap! I joined a company that had products that I used and believed in. I would like to share some tips with you to get started. This is not an article about how to book parties and recruit. Those are tips that you should naturally pick up as you go through your training and network with others in your business. What I do hope to show you is how to choose the right company and overcome any initial reservations you have about going into business for yourself.

First, do you have a company in mind? While it is important to join a company that pays a decent commission you want to make sure that you are passionate about the products. Think about what you enjoy and go from there. For me I chose a home party plan that offered home decor because decorating my home is something that I have always enjoyed. I also went to many home parties and enjoyed the decorating tips and presentations. Think about what you enjoy and most likely you will find a direct sales company in that niche. You will find direct sales companies that offer anything from home decor to gourmet food to jewelry and so much more. Check out the many work at home sites that are geared toward women and you will find several. Just go to google and type in "wahm" in the google search box and you will find listings of several great work at home sites with information on a variety of companies.

Once you have decided on your niche then it is time to decide on a company. If you were to chose home decor like I did you will most likely find several companies that specialize in that niche so how do you choose? There are many advantages to being one of the first reps with a new company but on the other hand you might feel more comfortable joining an established company. If you want to join an establlished company visit dsa. org and check to see if the company that you are thinking about is listed with the direct selling association.

Did you find a company that you are interested in joining? Go ahead and ask for information but let the potential sponsor know that you are looking at different companies. Be sure to inquire about what fees will be involved to join. We have all heard that if anyone asks you for money up front then it must be a scam right? While there are scams out there that you need to be aware of, you also need to realize that in direct sales you are working for yourself and there will be costs involved in running your own business. These costs could include the initial cost of your kit, product catalogs, sales supplies, etc. Some companies may offer a better commission but the cost of supplies may be higher.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if you do find a company that you are interested in you want to make sure that you can work with your potential sponsor. Just like when you shopped around different companies it is also acceptable to talk to different reps within one company and find someone that you can work with. It doesn't necessarily have to be the rep with the most experieince. What is important is to find someone who knows the policies of the company and is enthusiastic about helping you. Ask her what kind of training she provides and about various online groups that you can join for support.

Next you will have to decide just who you would like to work with. With some companies you are allowed to join under anyone you please while others prefer you join with someone local. The advantages of working with someone locally is that you can train with her in person and maybe even do local events together. On the other hand you may find that you really click with someone that you met from another state. Either way you will want to see if there is local training in your area. If not you should be able to learn what you need through the training materials in your kit as well as through your sponsor.

So now you have picked your company, gone through the training, booked some parties (usually starting with friends and famiily) and you are ready to get started! While you may be nervous keep this in mind: The more that you know about and believe in your product the easier it is to talk about and sell. Practice your demonstration at home in front of your spouse or even in front of a mirror if you need to.. If you are worried that you are going to forget something then go ahead and write down key notes on business cards. And what if you do make a few mistakes in your presentation? Don't worry! It happens to even the most experienced so just laugh it off and go on and have a great time!

Revenue building strategies for small business

Very few work at home or small business owners think about revenue generating. In fact, if you ask most ‘how will your business generate revenue,’ most will give a vague, random answer that is based on clichйs from business management and ‘How to Start a Business’ books. After investing a few thousand dollars into the business, and spending several months struggling, the business owner is forced to sit down and create a strategy for generating wealth.

The ideal strategy is found in business expansion and promotion. It does not take a long time to create a strong revenue generating strategy. Small business owners who learn how to create a marketing plan will have the edge over their competition. There are a few basics that can help all work at home and ecommerce business owners.

Understand Marketing

There is a difference between marketing and sales. The act of selling generates revenue when a product is sold. Marketing is the act of attracting attention, branding a product or person, and then creating a buzz that will eventually result in sales.

A good marketing plan is an essential tool for any business, including ecommerce ones. It should be viewed as a blueprint for generating revenues. Some small business course instructors tell their students, ‘if you cannot create at least five pages of revenue generating strategies, you haven’t thought through the process well enough.’

The basics of marketing involves showcasing the product for sale. This involves more than posting a website and creating a shopping cart. Many new business owners lose track of the most important word ‘showcase.’ The product must be put before the general public. Not in a way that shoves the product or the company down prospective client’s throats, but in a way that generates interest.

There are several ways to do this on the Internet. The most common is writing press releases, reviews on the product, and participating in forums where you can casually mention how the products solved your problems. Another way is to join a community and help other members solve their problems, and in turn, earning their respect and turning them into clients.

Vary the Payment Options

One of the most overlooked aspects of the ecommerce and brick-and-mortar business is the payment options. Consumers usually favor one or two methods of payment, if those are not available they will leave.

Payment options must be a foundation of a revenue generating strategy. The business owner should design different strategies around different payment methods.

One of the biggest mistakes is giving potential customers only one place to purchase the item. Many small businesses limit their sales to their personal website. Internet customers who are afraid of phishing scams will prefer to walk instead of making a purchase - no matter how much they like the product. Many ecommerce sites are now selling through Amazon. com using their fulfillment option, or Ebay, to offer a ‘familiar’ method of selling to their businesses. Others are building PayPal stores, taking advantage of Ebay’s promotion and advertising to gain credibility and respect from prospective clients.

Information

It is amazing how many web businesses invest hundreds of dollars in creating content, but none of that has to do with their products. They do not write reviews, or even have guest books were current clients can write their own reviews on the product. The short blurb on a shopping cart is never enough to sell a product. The potential customer must be sold before reaching the product.

There are three customer needs that the information must cover. First, how the product can solve problems. Second, how the product can improve life. Third, how the product will save time.

A revenue generating strategy that covers these three areas, and meet the three needs of customers can be labeled a ‘blueprint of success.’

3 benefits of web analytics

Web analytics is the process of measuring site statistics and analyzing traffic behavior. Here are there of the main benefits of web analytics.

It is typical for any business to do some data analysis. Data analysis is used to determine sales, profit, loss rate, and market interest. However, in terms of establishing a strong e-presence for your website, there is one tool that you could used in order to collect necessary data that you would need to promote your site.

Web analytics has been gaining steady popularity among websites, blogs and portals. It is used to analyze market trends and to identify website users or visitors. It is also used to determine the behavior of website users. It is a great tool to determine your latest website trends and your visitors’ or users’ preferences in terms of site features. Here are the benefits of web analytics.

Number 1: It helps monitor your visitors and users

With web analytics, you would know how long your visitor stayed in your website, who they are and where they came from. You will be able to know their clickstreams, the keywords they used, and how they came to be in your website (referrer pages, search engines, etc). You would be able to determine how many times a user or a visitor returned to your website and which pages were given preference.

In fact, a web analytics tool would tell you your website usage down to the last specifics. It would tell you about your visitor’s nationality and language. It can even pinpoint the city of origin. Of course, it will tell you the IP addresses and the host used for access. Further analysis would reveal if your visitors were there to actually check out your site or if they were mere strays. Most certainly, you will know how many visitors you get daily.

Number 2: It can help you optimize your website

Once you have carefully studied the actions of your visitors or web users, you would be able to act accordingly in order to optimize your website. You would also have an idea about the things that need changing and the aspects of your website that may appeal more to your market. You would know which pages are most viewed and which are basically ignored. You would be able to adjust certain aspects of your website that need improvement or adjustments. You could then fix any technical problems; or you could also improve, streamline or reshape site navigation to better assist your site users or visitors.

Number 3: It can help you formulate a sales and e-marketing plan

Web analytics will be able to assist you in preparing for an e-marketing plan and course of action. This will be more effective because your plan would be based on actual facts and not mere probabilities. You would be able to really know what your market wants. By tracking the items which were highly viewed, you would learn which products received the highest response. You would also be able to enhance other programs that you have already employed like pay-per-click or PPC advertising. You would be able to get more clients, as well as monitor and keep your clients interested.

When web hosting consider dedicated servers

There is hosting and then there is hosting and then there is hosting. But, what really is the difference between one type of hosting and another.

To begin with there are the usual issues related to hosting: the speed, the disk space, the bandwidth, the price, and the like. But today I am going to point out one important parameter about hosts that you might overlook, but should not. That almighty parameter is: Who else is hosted on the same server as you are?

Are you puzzled about why that is an important issue? Well, there isn't really any reason to be puzzled. When you live in a particular home, are you not concerned with who lives in the same neighborhood? Which other websites inhabit your server is a matter of similar concern.

To begin with, the horror of hosting a website is to find it exists in a bad neighborhood. Here are some of the things that can do wrong with a bad neighborhood:

* If someone else, I repeat, not you, but someone else has been using your server to email spam, then your server could already be in the list of blacklisted servers. This means that your mail could end up in the junk mailbox of the receiver. Some of the more aggressive spam filters would actually prevent your mail from ever reaching.

* Regardless of your online marketing strategy, a significant portion of your traffic will originate from search engines. If the other web sites on your server are in the bad books of the search engine, your site could be devalued too. This is especially true if you also share the same IP.

The list can go on. Indeed, it can get scarier. But without much more ado, let me jump to the solution to all these problems. Are you ready? Well, the simple solution is to get dedicated web hosting. This means that your site or sites are on a server that is dedicated to your web sites.

That is not the only advantage of a dedicated host. You are basically in full control over the kind of software you load, the kind of programs you run. The kind of background processes you run. The nature of your back up strategy. And a whole lot more.

Dedicated hosting does cost more. So that is something you will have to evaluate against the benefits you get. In any case, an informed choice is better than an uninformed one.

Domain names so many to choose from

The use of multiple domains is something that many online businesses are happily participating in. You may wonder why someone would go to the added expense of purchasing additional domain names they may not even use.

From a marketing standpoint there are three solid reasons why ‘the more - the merrier’ is a concept that may make sense when it comes to the acquisition of domain names.

1. Misspellings and Confused Destinations

If the title of your domain contains words that are often misspelled by others it may make sense to purchase the domains that contain those misspellings. The reason this makes sense is that if a visitor tries to log on from memory and misspells your name ‘correctly’ they can still be directed to your primary website.

This may sound strange, but if even a small percentage of those challenged at spelling ultimately make a purchase it is marketing money well spent.

2. Eliminate the Copycats

Even if your domain ends in. com it may make sense to purchase the same domain in. net and other domain extensions. All these extra domains can be redirected to your primary website.

This approach provides two separate benefits.

a) Visitors can access your site even if they have forgotten what domain extension you have.

b) If the site becomes popular, you may not have as many copycats who try to find a website name that is similar to yours. They may also look for the exact same name under a separate domain extension. You may also wish to have your site name trademarked to minimize the possibilities for a copycat website to develop.

3. Resell Domain Names

Some online marketers have selected names that have to do with their product or services that may be general in theme. A motivated site developer may be willing to pay a significant price to acquire the domain name. Many marketers will check trends and acquire short domain names associated with the trend for the purpose of reselling at a higher price.

The growth of the Internet has made a good website name a commodity that has value. When you select your ecommerce domain name chose carefully and keep it as short as possible. If you can find a one word name for your website you may have a positive domain name. The use of the business name is a highly valued consideration, although if there are multiple words in the business name title (i. e. Ted’s Taxidermy, Bait, Convenience and Taco Stand) you might find the primary purpose of the business and find a domain name that connects with site visitors.