Your Checklist To Search Engine Optimisation Reports

by: Derek Rogers
The most important online marketing strategies that can help you be successful with optimizing your business on the web include building a plan, blogging, an email list, press releases, and much more. Be sure to have these items on your checklist and you will have an excellent and productive website for your business.

The first and most important strategy for optimizing your search engine for your website is to create a plan for your site and your business. You should determine all of the most important things. What are your goals for accomplishments with your site and who is your audience going to be? That is, what types of people do you believe will be interested in your products and what people do you believe you need to target that will continue to come back for more. You need to make a decision how you are going to make your website better than others, how it will stand out from the rest and grab the attention. All of these answers to these questions should be the base of your web plan to optimizing your website and they should be at the top of your checklist.

The next thing that you need to do for optimization of your website is to create a marketing plan that will work and get the word out about your business and your site. This includes writing press releases and getting them out to every contact that you have in the media. You should also post the press releases online to every place that will allow you to. In addition to writing press releases for your website, you should write extensive articles about your website, your company, your products, and more. These articles should contain important keywords that will take people back to your site. You should also include your website and company information in all of the articles including contact information if people have questions.

Creating a blog should also be on your checklist for total optimization. This is the one way you can have the keywords that you need for your site to be pulled up in search engines and remain at the top. You should start relevant conversations, add posts, and useful data to your blog and keep people coming back for more. If you are talking about a subject that is important to people they will discuss issues with you, in return, adding more keywords to your site. You should also get on other blogs across the Internet and talk about your website and your products in other blogs. This is good advertising for you also.

You should build a mailing list for optimizing your site. This can be done by determining who your audience is. Your email list may be created over time as people enter in their information and if they request to be on the list. It is important to respond to requests through email and to let the people that do come back know that you care about them as a customer. The best thing about email is that it is free and extremely helpful for your business.

Another way you can optimize your site is by offering incentives to people who visit your site. You can offer free stuff, discounts, and more. People often search the web just for free items and by doing this you are generating more traffic to your website.

There are many points you should add to your checklist when you are concerned about optimizing your website on the Internet for your business.

A Guide to RSS Aggregators

by: Terry Leslie
One of the most popular features of Internet portals, websites, pages and even emails is a frame that features an organized list of news headlines and periodic updates from other web sources. Really Simple Syndication, formerly “Rich Site Summary” or simply, RSS makes this possible.

Most users visit a lot of websites whose content continually change, such as news sites, community organization or professional association information pages, medical websites, product support pages, and blogs. As Internet surfing became an intrinsic part of business and leisure, it became important to get rid of the very tedious task of repeatedly returning to each website to see updated content.

RSS easily distributes information from different websites to a wider number of Internet users. RSS aggregators are programs that use RSS to source these updates, and then organize those lists of headlines, content and notices for easy reading. It allows computers to automatically retrieve and read the content that users want, then track changes and personalize lists of headlines that interests them.

The specially made computer programs called “RSS aggregators” were created to automatically find and retrieve the RSS feeds of pre-selected internet sites on behalf of the user and organize the results accordingly. (RSS feeds and aggregators are also sometimes referred to as "RSS Channels" and "RSS Readers".)

The RSS aggregator is like a web browser for RSS content. HTML presents information directly to users, and RSS automatically lets computers communicate with one another. While users use browsers to surf the web then load and view each page of interest, RSS aggregators keeps track of changes to many websites. The titles or descriptions are links themselves and can be used to load the web page the user wants.

RSS starts with an original Web site that has content made available by the administrator. The website creates an RSS document and registers this content with an RSS publisher that will allow other websites to syndicate the documents. The Web site also produces an RSS feed, or channel, which is available together with all other resources or documents on the particular Web server. The website will register the feed as an RSS document, with a listed directory of appropriate RSS publishers.

An RSS feed is composed of website content listed from newest to oldest. Each item usually consists of a simple title describing the item along with a more complete description and a link to a web page with the actual content being described. In some instances, the short description or title line is the all the updated information that a user wants to read (for example, final games scores in sports, weblogs post, or stock updates). Therefore, it is not even necessary to have a web page associated with the content or update items listed -- sometimes all the needed information that users need would be in the titles and short summaries themselves.

The RSS content is located in a single file on a webpage in a manner not very different from typical web pages. The difference is that the information is written in the XML computer code for use by an RSS aggregator and not by a web user like a normal HTML page.

There are 2 main parts that are involved in RSS syndication, namely: the source end and the client end.

The client end of RSS publishing makes up part of the system that gathers and uses the RSS feed. For example, Mozilla FireFox browser is typically at the client end of the RSS transaction. A user’s desktop RSS aggregator program also belongs to the client end.

Once the URL of an RSS feed is known, a user can give that address to an RSS aggregator program and have the aggregator monitor the RSS feed for changes. Numerous RSS aggregators are already preconfigured with a ready list of RSS feed URLs for popular news or information websites that a user can simply choose from.

There are many RSS aggregators that can be used by all Internet users. Some can be accessed through the Internet, some are already incorporated into email applications, and others run as a standalone program inside the personal computer.

RSS feeds have evolved into many uses. Some uses gaining popularity are:

•For online store or retail establishments: Notification of new product arrivals
•For organization or association newsletters: title listings and notification of new issues, including email newsletters
•Weather Updates and other alerts of changing geographic conditions
•Database management: Notification of new items added, or new registered members to a club or interest group.

The uses of feeds will continue to grow, because RSS aggregators make access to any information that individual users like more convenient and fun.

In the mean time, Good Luck on your journey to success…

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Life Style Article - How To Choose The Right Furniture For You

by: Craig Miller
Long gone are the days when office furniture meant a simple computer desk and a filing cabinet. In this day and age, we have all sorts of technology to accommodate for. There are photocopiers, drafting tables, large networks of workstations, and much more to take into account.

Getting the best deal on this excess in office furniture can be tough. And the question arises as to whether not the extra money is worth it in the first place- so what is a business to do?

Discount Office Furniture Vs Brand Name Office Furniture

There is a certain place for budget cuts, and then certain places for excess spending. Office furniture is one of the categories that floats somewhere in the middle between the two.

Some claim that brand name furniture that specializes in new-age design and comfort is worth the money. The reasoning behind this claim is simple: happy and comfortable workers are more efficient than uninspired and unhappy workers.

One good example of this is Google, who is a company that specializes in employee satisfaction. Google remains to be one of the best places to work for- and if you've seen their office furniture, you can guess it wasn't the discount brand at the handy shop. Google claims that the extra style inspires creativity- and we can't disagree.

But discount furniture is what most businesses side with. After all, how much more money can one spend before trying to make employees more inspired? For most businesses, the return on investment just isn't anywhere near what they'd like. The result: you'll likely stick with discount office furniture long before splurging on new-age furniture.

Arguments for Work Safety and Tax Write-offs

One of the leading problems in workplace safety is carpal tunnel syndrome. This affliction is caused by poor posture in the workplace- something many brand name products fix. Some could argue that the company would be less responsible for injuries with these ergonomic brands of office furniture. In many respects, they are right- carpal tunnel is indeed a very real threat.

To help justify the cause, some argue that the tax write-offs that are available for office furniture makes the price of ergonomic designs much easier to stomach. This will put many office products in reach for businesses- but careful spending is still needed. There are limits to the tax write-offs, and even then, the tax breaks only come once a year.

One clever strategy many businesses engage in is last-minute shopping. That way they can get a return on their money much sooner, so waiting the year out isn't a problem (whereas the money could be better used in reinvesting into the business).

When Money Isn't an Option

If money wasn't an option, what should you splurge on? First and foremost, safety should be addressed. Chairs with supportive backs are a must. Keyboards and mice with ergonomic designs that counteract carpal tunnel are also worthy of a purchase.

Only after safety is addressed should one consider style and brand name options. It's nice to have a decorated office space to inspire and give a positive attitude. When money isn't an option, this will indeed benefit those who use the office. (Studies show interesting colours and styles do, in fact, inspire creativity and help overall efficiency on average.)

In the end, it's good to have an accountant nearby for tax advice, safety in mind, and a strong will to get the best office furniture for your company

Writing Articles For Affiliate Programs

by: Nick Kaplan
Why write articles

Writing articles can make your affiliate pages unique and drive more traffic from the major search engines, resulting in more sales.

In some instances the merchant's affiliate program may not provide you with more than a banner and a few text links.

If your traffic levels are low than this will not do much to drive traffic to your affiliate links.

If the merchant does provide you with content then this can be viewed by search engines as duplicate material depending on how many affiliates are promoting the same product with that content.

Beginning Your Article

First begin by reading all the information on the merchant's site about the affiliate program, if you are not already familiar with the product.

It is very important that you learn what it is that you are offering to your customers such as,product features,capabilities,limitations and specifications.

Many merchants will include these details with the description.

Researching your article

Use one of the many free or paid keyword suggestion tools to build your list of niche keywords.

Google Adwords, Digitalpoint and CBtrends all have really useful keyword tools which are free. Experimenting will help you discover search trends.

Testing these keywords in major search engine will give you a sense market saturation and competition.

Include Keywords In your Article

When writing for search engines your article should be keyword rich. Include long tail keyword phrases in your article title and subcategories. Product specific keyword phrases will help drive targeted traffic from search engines to your specific niche.

What to include in your article

Creating an outline will help you organize your article and supporting subcategories sequence.

Including descriptive keywords such as, size, color and dimensions in your article will further help drive targeted visitors to your site.

Helping your visitors solve a problem

When promoting affiliate programs through article writing, bring attention to product features that will help your visitors resolve a problem.

Use examples and illustrations of how these features can be applied in real life situations.

If your product is easy to use, then bring attention to why you believe it is better than similar products.

Ways to emphasize product features

Use bullet points, numbering or italics when writing articles to emphasize and bring attention to helpful product features.

Free content

Articles provide free instant content for ezines,newsletters and website publishers. This free content is used to optimize and attract free search engine traffic.

Submitting to article directories

There are countless popular free article directories, where your can submit your article for publication. Arcanaweb publishes a list of many popular directories. These directories allow anyone to reprint the article as long as the resource box is included at the end of the article.

Read and follow the guidelines before submitting your articles

Do not include affiliate links in your article or resource box.

This may cause your article to be rejected by the directory.

Do not plagiarize another writers material.

Resource box and backlinks

Writing articles can increase the number of one way links or backlinks to your site.

Included at the end of every article is a resource box,where you can include a brief bio and link back to your site.

Free article directories

Free article directories will allow you submit content but you are not paid for your article. Goarticles,Isnare and Articledashboard are among some of the large high traffic free article repositories.

Article distribution and submission services

Article distribution services will submit your article for a fee to article directories,ezines,newsletters,article email groups, social bookmarking and article announcement sites.

Article submission software

Article submission software such as Artemis Lite and Article Submitter 2.2 are free and may expedite the process once your are registered. You will need to do a manual submission for sites using an access code.

Paid article directories

These directories will pay you for writing articles or reviews.

Compensation may be in the form of revenue share or per word.

Paid to write reviews

In addition to getting paid for writing articles, reviews can be another avenue to earn extra income. Review rates can range anywhere from $2.00 to $200.00.

Reviewme, Reviewstream, Softwarejudge and Epinions are just a few of the popular paid to review sites that can put extra cash in your pocket.

You can also earn money with your clickbank id at Reviewsarena for up to 60 days.

Paid to blog

Writing blogs are yet another alternative for earning extra income.

Payperpost and Smorty are blog sites that pay weekly and compensation may range anywhere from $5 to $100. In some cases, you may be able to negotiate a price with the advertiser.

In conclusion

Do your research before writing an article,use targeted keywords on affiliate product landing pages. Submit to high ranking article directories to increase the number of quality backlinks. Check site stats for increase traffic levels. Test and improve your writing skills by reading writing tutorials and ebooks. Learn from mistakes and continue writing articles.

5 Essential Ingredients of a Successful Online Work at Home Business

by: stan tomaszewski
The internet changes daily as far as what works and what doesn't when it comes to making money online.

If you are new to work at home online businesses, your head can spin with all the hype, sales pitches , and outright lies as far as the reality of starting up an online home based business.

There are however a few things to look for in your search for a work at home business that can become some nice additional income, or even better, your "job". Working at home, generating $1000 a day is far from what I call a "job".

To help ease your frustration, and point you in the right direction for what you should be looking for in today's online marketplace, the following summarizes the 5 essential ingredients in a winning work at home online business opportunity.

Later in this brief overview, I will offer a "secret" to online success that is rarely mentioned in the many articles written on the subject.

1. SYSTEM- This may be the most crucial item to your success. You need a System that generates prospects, educates them on your business opportunity, sorts and weeds out those that are not interested in your offer, then closes the sale at a conversion rate that ensures profitability. The System must be as automated as possible so you aren't spending hours cold calling or following up with people that are probably not interested, then trying to use your sales closing skills to make a sale.

Think of the successful off line businesses such as McDonalds, Tim Hortons or Subway. Do you think they could duplicate those businesses all over the country, setting up new franchise owners to run these businesses, without a SYSTEM that works?

2. BIG Profits- This is important as the advertising needed to result in sales can be quite costly. For some $1000 price point business programs, it isn't unusual to spend $200, $400 or even $600 to make that $1000 sale. Of course, there are ways to also spend $0 in advertising, but the reality is advertising is often on the range where to make $1, you may need to spend $0.40. Your profit is still $0.60. Would you do that over and over if you had a automated system in place to make this happen? Big Profits allows enough profit so your advertising cost is well covered by your selling price. You can't do much advertising to make a profit on selling a $20 ebook for example.

3. Hot Products- Yes, the product must be tangible and have use and value. There are many new business opportunities that offer $75,000 or more worth of downloadable products that sell for $1000. That's pretty HOT, and full of value. Having a product that can be downloaded, means NO shipping. Now that is just way too easy.

4. Leads and Traffic- This is probably the most perplexing for most new work at home business owners. An online business will never make any money without a source of leads (prospects). The key to providing leads to an online business is they need to be targeted.

This means you need to advertise to a niche market of people looking for exactly what your offers. Seems so simple a concept, but so may people struggle in building their prospect list.

5. Support and Training- as with any business start up, you need to learn your work at home online business program.Make sure that your business program has ample training and resources so you know exactly what to do to get those prospects to your System. This is not always easy to figure out when doing your due diligence on an offer.

As a suggestion, make sure you ask for examples of where and how you will advertise. Also ask where will you get the wording for the ads,who will write the ad copy and the followup messages, what the conversion rates are for your system. If your sponsor can't provide good answers, then they may not be that successful themselves.

This is just a brief overview of what today's online business programs need to cut through the many offers out there and make your business stand out to others.

Earlier I mentioned I'd offer a "secret" to successful online work at home business programs that is rarely mentioned in the various sales pitches. The true secret just might be you.

Most people do not realize they are starting up a real business. There will be ups and downs, profitability may not come overnight, or you may expect riches in the first few days.

I am sure some people have had such success, but most starting out, very likely start with leads, no prior list of prospects, and a small advertising budget. You then need to make good decisions to leverage your sales to grow your business.

The best way to accomplish an online business start up is with the very best automated SYSTEM. Then you can spend most of your time on advertising and growing your prospect list- leaving the rest to the system to close sales which will deliver you paying customers. Then you can train your new customers to do what you know how to do!

For more information on automated systems, please take a look at our main business review website.

Guaranteed Extra Cash Online

by: Peter V. Ruble

For college students and other people who feel burned out trying to balance paying the bills and living at the same time, ads like these can prove to be irresistible. Many of them make perfect sense and easily hook you based on good concepts. Unfortunately, many times the product or service does not match the brilliance of a great idea for making money from home or through the Internet. As I’ve learned myself, the further you go down this road, the more excited you get. You basically get hooked, and if you aren’t careful, you will end up working hard and falling further into debt than you can imagine. Much like gambling, the lure of easy money and independence can make just about anyone fall prey to work at home scams that feed off your dreams to get to your wallet so they can go on to the next victim.

Hopefully, you will never fall victim to these scam artists. However, the fact of the matter is that these scammers would not be wasting their time if they were not making any money. And as long as people continue to get mixed up in this business, these scammers are going to stick around to trick more and more people.

The best way to keep a scammer’s claws away from your credit card is to do thorough research on each opportunity that you are considering. This means doing much more than simply reading a bit about it online. In my personal experience, I have been taken by companies who were savvy enough to pollute the Internet with staged testimonials, guarantees, questionable references to big name endorsements, and even appearances in the Better Business Bureau.

A colleague of mine who invested in vending machine placement services even went so far as to physically go to the manufacturing plant to tour the warehouse as well as contact the Better Business Bureau of that state. What he received, in return, were twenty malfunctioning candy machines with a list of local businesses who had apparently agreed to receive them. Not only did none of these businesses know what he was talking about, many of them were hostile when he showed up to place them.

What you want to do is check message boards such as the ASK section of Yahoo.com. Another simple method of weeding out the scams from the genuine opportunities is to go to a search engine and simply type in the company name followed by the word “scam”. If you do this, and you are barraged by an endless list of complaints, you my friend have found a nugget of gold in a sea of mud.

In terms of the Better Business Bureau, it is best to contact them directly to ask about any complaints, and also find out how long a company has been listed. The Better Business Bureau operates state by state. They will be able to tell you if they have any complaints on file. If they do, you will want to avoid the opportunity at all costs. But if it appears that a company is doing business the right way, you can continue your own research.

Being in the Business Bureau is not necessarily that hard to accomplish. Many scammers can use their money and connections to set up a front to initially qualify for the Better Business Bureau just long enough for them to collect their cash from unsuspecting victims, close shop, create a new identity and start again.

Before you decide to do anything, attempt to get in touch with the company that you are interested in. Can you get a human being on the phone? Do they have an actually physical address? How long does it take them to respond to your e-mails, if at all? If you cannot even talk to the company before you start, there is not chance that they will be around when you really need them. I once made quite a bit of money selling vacation vouchers on auction sites. The marketing plan was sound, and the money saving vouchers was a hit. Only problem was, I could never get in touch with their customer service department to handle my customer inquiries and complaints once I realized that the promises that existed in writing on the vouchers were misleading at best. This proved to be such a problem that it took me over a year to recover from the negative publicity on my auction site.

Of course, there are legitimate home based businesses out there. With the Internet and all the low cost, web producing tools available, there seems to be a renaissance in entrepreneurship. Basically, just find a product or service you can market online, and do your research. Sell on EBay if you don’t want to build your own website. You can have a website their and all search engine marketing is already done by EBay. The Small Business Association has an office in downtown Tacoma and contains invaluable information on their website http://www.sba.com. Since small business is the backbone of our country economically, sources such as these are eager to help you create a plan with realistic expectations.

However, like anything else worthwhile, you have to do your homework and work hard at it. The problem is that too many people make you think you can practically go online and make money just clicking on a mouse. You want to steer clear of any business that asks to you to pay for their “Top Secret” e-book that will teach you how to make an automated income.”

Think about it, if you are in dire need of cash, can you imagine any other situation in which you would not only work for free, but pay for the privilege to work. There are no magic formals or secrets worth paying for. All of the information in these e-books can be found for free through your own research if you have common internet skills.

If you don’t want to work hard and just make a few easy extra bucks without donating your blood or volunteering to be a guinea pig, it is possible to make some good extra money filling out online surveys or through mystery shopping. There are real opportunities out there which require no fee to get started. Not only that, several of them will even give you a $5 bonus just for signing up. If a company such as this is legitimate, they would be making lots of money through the success of its members. Companies that require that $49.97 start up fee only make money through the fee and only want to teach you how to get other people to do the same. The products are all useless lists and general information that anyone with a functioning mind could figure out on their own, or get for free by doing their own research.

In 12 years of trying to make a living on the Internet, the following are the best companies I have ever encountered for making a few extra bucks filling out surveys, playing games and mystery shopping. They probably won’t pay the rent, but if you’re interested in making an extra $400 or $500 a month or eating out at nice restaurants and going to movies for free, you may want to check these out:

Mystery Shopping Providers Association: ." target=new>http://www.mysteryshop.org/shoppers/">.

This site contains all the information you will ever need on starting up as a mystery shopper. It is also a portal for the best sites to go to for mystery shopping jobs online, and they don’t require that you invest a penny.

InboxDollars.com. (you can sign up for free and get $5 just for signing up. You can make a few hundred dollars in one day, theoretically, if you are willing to use a credit card to sign up for free or paid trials. Just make sure you have the patience to fill out the long surveys and keep detailed records so you can remember to cancel your free trials before you get charged. Also, you can fill out surveys to make a dollar or two which are completely free. I’ve made about $400 with this site.

http://www..sendearnings.com.(almost identical to InboxDollars.com)

http://www.treasuretrooper.com. (a lot of free surveys and cool games).

http://www.tiktikcash.com. By far the best of the survey sites. The free surveys are tremendous. You can make a dollar or two in one minute. This site has the shortest, most painless surveys. I made over thirty bucks in less than after signing up.

What a Website Needs to Succeed!

by: Jim Shutes
A Proven Formula for All Websites

Every business needs a website. It is an absolute MUST! Nowadays, it’s like not being in the phone book. The Internet is a digitally-indexed database that is searchable. Whenever anyone wants to know more about anything, they look it up on the Internet, in their own time, 24/7, without the pressure of a sales person. With search engines, such as Google.com or Yahoo.com, the information they are looking for can be found in seconds.

If you aren’t where people are looking, you CAN’T get the sale.

Even if you aren’t planning on selling anything online, you still need to have an Internet presence, telling your story and being a 24/7 sales person for you. The Internet is information. So, even if you just have an informational website, people can find out more about you, your company, what you have to offer, and why they should choose you over your competition. A website gives you the opportunity to get all of that across to your potential customer.

Following, are proven components of a website and why you will need them in yours.

A Home Page is the window into your website and should be short, sweat, and to the point. Statistically, it has been proven that you get about 3 seconds, once a person arrives at your website, to get them interested enough to click for more information. If you can get them to click, then you have them! If you try to give them all of the information at once, then you will lose them.

Some websites try to give you their inventory on the home page, or write a story that scrolls forever. This is not good. A home page should not scroll. This is a big “No No”. When people get to a home page and see paragraphs, trust me, they go on to the next website. It needs graphics that represent the services, happy pictures, happy customers, and a quick sales pitch. Remember, people are lazy and won’t read large amounts of text, unless they have a need to. And included on the home page, needs to be quickly gotten across, why someone should use you over your competitor.

The About Us page sometimes gets left off, in favor of making the home page the About Us page. You will want to have an About Us page that explains in detail what you have to offer, your history, your mission statement, and a good reason that a potential customer should use buy from you over your competitor. This can be seen as the detailed version of the home page. However, it is a mistake to forgo the About Us page in exchange for a detailed home page. Again, this will just push people away who do not want to read all of the details to find out who you are and what you have to offer. This information should be available for those who wish to see more information after they are intrigued by the home page.

Design rules. For uniformity and good design, websites (any marketing piece) should have rules for graphic elements and text. For example, all headings should be the same size/style/color, etc. All subheads should have their own size/style/color, etc. This helps the eye make sense of what it is looking at. Guide your visitor with well-placed graphics and text.

Make sure that your website has good navigation, with buttons/links for all main sections of your website. And be sure to keep these navigation buttons/links visible on ANY page. There is nothing more frustrating than to not be able to find your way while browsing a website. People will leave before becoming too frustrated. Don’t let this happen on your website!

The constant, flashing email (or other) button/advertisement is a "No No" these days. In the old days, flashing and blinking graphics were used. As websites became more graphically sophisticated, these types of elements were not used any more. It can be annoying to see something flashing just off your vision, when you are trying to read the web page.

Text links at the bottom are rarely used any more. They were implemented back in the day of the text-based websites, when they were just starting out. This was for the dial-up users who had the option to turn off graphics for faster web page loading. When this happened, there were no links for navigation, unless a webmaster placed text links at the bottom. Nowadays, most people have broadband connections, and this just isn't necessary any more.

The biggest problem I see with websites these days is that a person has to read quite a bit to see what, exactly, a website is selling. When people show up at your website, you get about 3 seconds to peak their interest. Get it across very quickly, with icons/graphics/bullet points that are easy to understand. Tell them why they should choose you over your competition. And then tell them where to go to get started.

Another very important element is testimonials. More important than telling them why a potential customer should use your services over your competitions’, is a customer of yours saying the same thing. Not only is a testimonial someone who used your services, but they can say "how" you were able to help them. This gives new potential customers ideas on how your services will help “them”. Testimonials are also sales pitches from your happy customers, people just like them. They are people who were in the same position as they are right now and they got through it, so they can too. They also build credibility. When you are endorsed by other people, you have credibility and that you can do what you say you can do. And even though they may be saying the same thing that you are saying, it is coming from someone just like them, and not someone who is trying to sell them anything. They have nothing to gain by saying this. You do. So they need to hear from them. You absolutely MUST have endorsements for your business; otherwise, you are just blowing your own horn!

The next best thing to a testimonial page is an FAQ page. An FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page answers questions for your company 24/7, when you can't be at the phone to answer, and for people who would rather look over your information than speak to someone who might try to sell them something. FAQs also help to give scenarios of how they can be helped, by answering questions that other potential customers have asked, and they might not have thought of themselves. This gets them thinking and gives them answers in a risk-free environment. It is VERY important to have an FAQ working for you 24/7. It's like having a free sales person working for you around the clock, fielding all questions that might come up! It's a MUST-have for ANY website!

Your website should also have a clear "call to action". A lot of websites say that “we are here and we do this”, but they don't tell them how to get started, or tell them where to go to get started right now... no call to action. Now that they have the information, now what? People are like sheep. They must be led. You must lead them to the next level; otherwise, they probably won't get there. You should have calls to action by all services, and on your home page. You should sprinkle testimonials throughout, as well, leading them back to the full testimonials and then to the call to action, which should be placed on the testimonials page, as well. You could offer a FREE Consultation by calling right now… or click HERE now to email us 24/7 for a FREE Consultation… something that tells them where to go from here and a reason to get started right now and how.

There also needs to be graphics to help tell the story; high-end icons that help draw the eye to the item of interest, to get them to read it. Having a text-only page usually does not get read. People are lazy and will not usually read paragraphs of information in hopes of getting the information they are looking for. They would have to first be extremely interested before reading the “fine print”. And to get them interested, it should be broken up with graphics that represent each section. They will see the related graphic first, and then move to that area if interested. But to give them a page of information usually doesn't work.

You also need meta tags. This is very important to search engines. These are hidden key words and phrases that describe what you offer, but also your location, etc. Search engines rely heavily on key words and phrases in order to give your website as a result in a search done for your type of business. In fact, it is also good to have misspelled keywords that people might type in order to find you. Obviously, you won’t want to have misspelled words or phrases on your page, since this will give the wrong impression of who you are. With meta tags, misspelled words are hidden in the code of the website, but can be used to bring people to your website who may not be able to correctly spell some your services. Even putting your competitions’ names and products in your meta tags can help get traffic to your site, so that they can compare your products and services to your competitors’.

Another item that puts you high on the search engine results listing is having articles about your type of business, both on your website, and other websites that link back to yours for more information on the subject. Offering free information makes you an authority on the subject, not just someone trying to sell their wares. This plays heavily in search results, along with one-way links back to your website. When you get one-way links back to your site for more information, this gives you much credibility and definitely helps to make you an authority that other sites rely on. So when someone looks up your type of product or service for more information, obviously the search engine will give a site that has the most helpful and free information (and one that other sites rely on for more information on this subject) a higher rating and puts them higher on the search results list.

A FREE Tips & Tricks or Hints page is also a good way to get relevant traffic. People are always looking for How-To's and DIY information on all types of subjects. On my site I have FREE Tech Tips that get hits all the time, which pertain to my services. Again, a percentage of these hits click on my services. And the only way I got them there was because of the FREE How-To's that I offer. So, you have to entice people to your site, by offering more than your competitor's website. This is where these types of pages come in handy.

It is also good to have a Privacy Policy page. This shows integrity and also builds credibility and a higher ranking in the search engines. This is one item that search engines look for, in particular. Websites with a page dedicated to a Privacy Policy get a higher ranking and your site will show up higher in the search results.

A Guarantee page is also a good idea. Again, this gives credibility and will give you an edge over your competitor, who may not offer a guarantee. A website that has a guarantee, but is hard to find, makes a potential customer feel like they have something to hide and may not purchase from that website. However, if you have an easy-to-find Guarantee that you put right in their face (whether you dedicate a page to it, or you put it right on the Home page), it eases potential customers into a buying position.

You may want to have a form that allows a customer to request more information about your product or service, and which also lets the customer type in their personal information and what they are looking for. This not only helps you by getting their contact information, it also helps by prompting the potential customer into thinking about other aspects. By doing it this way, you will also get all of the information needed to correctly quote a product or service more effectively, without having to make additional phone calls to the customer. The more common way of requesting information is just by posting an INFO email address and hope that the person requesting the info knows enough about what he is looking for to provide all of the info to get a good quote. This is not usually the case. Most of the time they need a form to fill out. In most cases, there is info that is left out. A form ensures that you get everything needed to quote the product or service accurately. And, also, by offering a form to request more info, leads will be generating 24-7 for you. All you have to do is the quote and give them a call. This reduces the need for cold-calling, and gives you an excuse to call and close the deal.

If you incorporate all of the above pages, along with the “way” these pages should be shown, your website will have a higher ranking in the search engines, which puts your website higher in the search results, thus significantly increasing the traffic to your website!

The above categories aren't the only things you can do to increase traffic to your website. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) should also be done, as well as swapping links with relevant websites, and posting articles and links back to your website from online article and content websites.

Create Successful Business Website

by: Gally Reznor

Congratulation, you finely decided to upgrade your business with a website. This is really important step which can take your business to a new level structurally and financially.

1. Well built and properly advertised website can bring you hundreds of new customers who wouldn't have heard about your business otherwise.

2. Most of people do not search for services on yellow pages no more but open Google , Yahoo, MSN, etc. Therefore your presence on the net is a very important strategy to earn new clients.

3. Website is your face when it comes to clients who arrive to you via the net. If your website is well built, even if you are a small business owner, clients will be more willing to work with you.

Now that we understand the importance of a good, reliable website for a business, let's go over some basic steps to make sure your website will be a success story:

Determine your budget:

Website building can cost you nothing or cost you thousands of dollars. I think that the best site is the one which benefit will excel its cost. Therefore every business owner must determine his appropriate budget .

Some companies offer absolutely free websites. There are some advantages and some disadvantages in such a website. The first and the biggest advantage is the zero cost. If your website turns out useless , you don't lose any money. The main disadvantages of free websites are usually the limited storage space (which means you can't build a large website) and limited bandwidth (if many users enter your site at once, it might become slow or even unavailable).

If you have a large sum of money to put on your web site, you may go to a custom Web Design firm. They will usually offer you two or three unique design sketches which they embed in their Content Management System and a directions about how to enter your content into it. The problem about this option is it's high cost.

There is no second chance to create a first impression:

Design is naturally one of the most important aspects in website success. Website design must represent your business as a prosperous, impressive and trustworthy therefore there is no place to disregard it.

Quality content:

In order to be found in search engines and attract serious visitors you must fill your website with high quality content. We suggest you enter information about yourself , your business and products. Professional articles and further information from your field of interest might add more value to the website and present you as an expert in your field.

Keeping in touch:

Once you have earned clients you better keep in touch with them. There are number of fast and cost effective ways to do so:

1.By mail. Today spam mail is a felony, but once a customer signed up at your website and gave his agreement to receive your e-mails, you should keep in touch with him , informing him about new products, services and sales.

2. By SMS. If your business is very dynamic you might use the SMS technology to keep in touch with your clients at real time.

3. Keep in touch with your clients by blogs and forums where you can offer them technical support

Inexpensive Tips For Getting Website Traffic

by: Richard Legg

You can get a lot of website traffic without having to spend a lot of money. If you want to develop a busy and profitable website for your online business, there are a lot of techniques for getting website traffic without it being expensive. Some of these cheap website traffic techniques include article directories, SEO, blog posting and even forum posting.

Among these methods, one of the most practical and most effective is submitting articles to article directories. These articles should contain a link or two back to your own site, which can help you increase your site traffic from readers who may be interested in seeing more of what you’re offering. There are already several excellent article directories available for your submissions. As long as your articles remain in the directories you submitted them to, this method will be one of the best and cheapest ways to pull in traffic.

Using SEO, or search engine optimization, is another inexpensive yet very effective way for getting traffic to your website. By using proper search engine optimization, your articles and your website’s overall content will become more search engine friendly, as well as your website. Include your keyword in the domain name of the website that hosts your articles. Also include keywords in the first paragraphs of your pages, as well as the title of the page itself. These SEO techniques will help your site get better exposure with search engines, and your articles will rank higher on search results.

Blogging is now becoming more popular than ever before, and you should take full advantage of it. More and more online businessmen are using blogs to promote their products and services, and it just makes perfect sense to follow suit. There are several good blogging sites on the Internet that allow people to sign up and create a blogging account with them for free, such as Blogger or Wordpress. Create your blog and link your home page to it. Updating your blog regularly will allow it to become more relevant to search engines, and as a result, it will help to drive more traffic to your site. It would help a lot if your articles and posts contain the appropriate keywords.

Another inexpensive website traffic technique that you can use is to join and participate in forums. Finding a forum that is related to your website’s content is even better. You can then easily post discussions, answers, and even start threads that can be useful to other forum members. You can pull in traffic by making entertaining or informative posts, since you’ll develop a reputation for being an authority on certain subjects. And don’t forget to have a link to your site in your signature file or your member profile.

See? You can get a lot of website traffic without spending a lot of money, just by following these techniques. Remember, effective usage of relevant keywords in your posts and articles, proper SEO methods, article submissions, blogging, and forum posting can all become invaluable but inexpensive tools for driving traffic to your website.

7 simple steps to Keyword Mastery & Search Engine Ranking

by: Dave James
Keyword Research has become an integral part of starting up your own business or growing your business (exponentially). Search engine marketing is here to stay for the long term, hence finding customers through keyword research should also be an integral part of your marketing.

Earlier, all you needed to do was to enter the description of your business in the title & meta tags and you were done with optimizing your web-site. Things have changed! And hence this article...

How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) relate to keywords?

SEO is the process of increasing the number of visitors to your web-page by the careful and deliberate use of targeted keywords and their specific placements designed to get the page to show up on the top listing for such keywords. (SEO also includes other strategies not discussed here.)

TIP: Keyword Research is very useful to you when you decide to start a pay-per-click campaign to drive visitors to your website or increase revenue using adsense.

Here are the seven simple steps to keyword mastery that will cause your page to be indexed correctly by Search Engines and your link to be displayed at the very top on the search results page.

Step 1) Start with the most common words you use to describe your business(or your niche, if you operate in one). If you are in the automobile service business, you may have the following: Car Repair , Body Shop, Car Repair, New tires with car repair, Wax and Shine etc. If you actually have a niche business such as Jaguar Service And Repairs, then it becomes even more easier.

Step 2) Call your friend. Ask him how he would try to find your widget on a search engine if he lost your phone number and he wanted to look you up on the Internet. What if he forgot the name of your establishment? What if ....

Your perception of how people see you may be different from your customers' perception of you. Add these new words to the list.

Repeat this as many times as you can with different people.

Step 3) Find other words related to your original list. such as names of the brands. Lexus Repair, Lexus spare-parts, Honda kit, etc.

Mix and match keywords with your original list to find even more keywords.

Step 4) Go to google and run a search for your widget. See what keywords bring up your competition and what words do not. Add them to your list .

Step 5) Add plurals and common mis-spellings too.

Step 6) Figure out as to how often people search using each of the phrases you have identified in your list. You can use the google adwords tool for this purpose.

TIP: Use adwords tool to see how many people have searched for each of your phrases in the recent past. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal . This also suggest keywords you might want to use.

Step 7) Make sure your keywords are placed in the following locations on you web page: Page Title, Meta Keywords, Meta Description, Header Tags, Alternate Description for images, First Paragraph on the page, strong Tags, Em tags, Ordered and unordered lists, Anchor Tags, File names, Folder Names, Footer Tags, Any URLs and links in your pages.

Should I use many keywords in the same page?

Yes. Use as many keywords as it makes sense. Don't overdo it. If your content becomes just a keyword trash-bin, users will start skipping over it and the search engines will catch on pretty fast. So avoid using too many keywords where it does not make sense. It's best if you have multiple pages offering up different keywords.

One caveat. You need to be aware of 'Keyword density'. Sometimes, if your usage of keywords is too high, and it looks like you have placed too many keywords, the search engine may not give you the best ranking. "Sprinkling" is the key-word when it comes to using them on each page.

You should also be aware of negative keywords. These are keywords you need to use in your PPC(Pay-per-Click) text so as to make sure that people do not click your link expecting to get freebies.

e.g. If you said : "Self Clearning Widgets- $500 and up", you keep out the people who are looking for cheaper stuff.

Are phrases better than individual words?

Depends! If your customer is searching for self-cleaning widget, then you should use self-cleaning widget. If your customer is searching for just widget, and auto clean, you should use these words separately.

How often do I have to check my keywords?

As often as you can. Your customers react to various influences around them and search for different terms at different times. To be able to remain on top with a good ranking you need to keep on top of your keywords. Sometimes they react to an offer made by a competition and start searching for similar offers.

I know. You are saying:"But I don't have that much time to devote to just keyword research." That brings us to the next question.

Do I have to do it all by myself?

I have had many websites in the past few years. In the beginning I did everything manually the old fashioned way.

Lately I've found a few tools that help make life easier for me, though you could do it all by yourselves if you had the time and the tenacity(which I sorely lack). I suggest you find yourselves a tool to do the work for you.

I use Keyword Elite now, though I've used WordTracker in the past.

Pick 1: Keyword Elite tool : If you really plan to take your business to the next level, this is a great tool. From generating your own keyword lists, to analyzing pay-per-click listings, to studying your competition, this one accomplishes quite a bit. This tool works with Google, Yahoo,MSN, Ask etc. It will save you tons of hours of wasted time and effort. Also, I like the fact that it is multi-threaded(lots of more power.)

WebSite: http://www.elitekeyword.net

Pick 2 : WordTracker: Offers a free, 'lite' version, as well as a paid version. Features include an online management system for different keyword projects, searching for often misspelled words, a system to calculate your best keywords, and much more. WebSite:Wordtracker.com/FreeWordtracker

Pick 3 : WebCEO :From a free version to a $389/- version this company has various options available. For small business owners, the $199/- version would be suitable.Go for the $389/- version if you have multiple web-sites running and your business model is solely online. Web Site: http://www.webceo.com/cgi-bin/go/clickthru.cgi?id=linkflow

What next ?

Use keyword research to identify the most likely phrases for your business.

Master keyword research just like I outlined in this article and create a massive list of targeted keywords.

Make a list of the 5 most promising keyword phrases.

Head over to your favorite domain listing / hosting company (eg. http://www.GoDaddy.com) and see if you can buy that phrase in the .com domain.eg. Self-cleaning-Widgets.com

Point your existing website to this url. If you don't have an existing web-site, create your new website using all the keywords you identified.

Submit your site to the search engines.

Happy hunting!


Copyright (c) 2008 Dave James

Understanding the Mortgage Meltdown; What happened and Who's to Blame

by: Richard Gandon

People are losing their homes and many more will lose their jobs before the mortgage meltdown works its way through the system.

To paraphrase Alan Greenspan's remarks on March 17th, 2008, “The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War. The crisis will leave many casualties.”

How many casualties? Experts are predicting that in the next few years, between 15 and 20 million homeowners could have homes worth less than what they owe. Walking away from a bad situation may actually make sense for people who mortgages that are 'upside down' considering the fact that refinancing is out of the question and home equity is nonexistent.

It seems quite easy to point fingers at greedy Wall Street titans for causing the sub-prime mortgage crises. They after all, put together the deals that allowed banks to underwrite mortgages and then offload these liabilities to investors. What many fail to realize is that there is no shortage of blame to go around from homeowners buying more home than they could afford to real estate agents looking for more commission dollars. Mortgage brokers and bankers, the banks themselves, ratings agencies such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's, Wall Street, the Fed and last but certainly not least, the Federal Government.

Let's start with the homeowners--the people who are now in the process or soon to enter the process, of losing their homes. Some of these people had never before owned a home and as such, may not have been prepared for the costs associated with homeownership. Basic financial literacy is sorely lacking in this country despite there being no shortage of budgeting and tracking programs readily available such as Quicken and Microsoft Money. The lack of financial literacy does not absolve these buyers of their responsibility. Every borrower receives a truth in lending disclosure statement. Here is a portion of what the act covers:

The purpose of TILA (Truth In Lending Act) is to promote the informed use of consumer credit by requiring disclosures about its terms and cost. TILA also gives consumers the right to cancel certain credit transactions that involve a lien on a consumer's principal dwelling, regulates certain credit card practices, and provides a means for fair and timely resolution of credit billing disputes. With the exception of certain high-cost mortgage loans, TILA does not regulate the charges that may be imposed for consumer credit. Rather, it requires a maximum interest rate to be stated in variable-rate contracts secured by the consumer's dwelling. It also imposes limitations on home equity plans that are subject to the requirements of Sec. 226.5b and mortgages that are subject to the requirements of Sec. 226.32. The regulation prohibits certain acts or practices in connection with credit secured by a consumer's principal dwelling.

Much of the subprime mortgage crisis can be traced directly back to variable-rate mortgages. As is clearly stated above, “TILA does not regulate the charge that may be imposed for consumer credit. Rather, it requires a maximum interest rate to be stated in variable-rate contracts secured by the consumers dwelling.” It also clearly states that TILA also gives consumers the right to cancel certain credit transactions that involve a lien on a consumer's principal dwelling. One has to wonder whether or not these homeowners:

1. Bothered to read the truth in lending act disclosure at all.

2. Understood what the truth in lending act disclosure meant.

3. Chose to ignore the information printed clearly the truth in lending act disclosure.

A number of months ago, just as the subprime mortgage crisis was beginning to unfold, The New York Daily News ran an article about a family in New York City, who had bought a home and were now faced with the prospect of foreclosure. The article was sympathetic to this family, highlighting the fact that they're living the American dream and that this dream was about to come to an end. What I found to be distressing was the fact that clearly visible in the photo that accompanied this sympathetic article was a very expensive flat screen television hanging on the wall. Perhaps I'm naïve, but I can assure you that if I were faced with the prospect of losing my home and having my family put out on the street, there is absolutely no way that I would still have that expensive television hanging on my wall. It would have been one of the first things to be sold and some financial relief would be found by jettisoning what I'm sure was the expensive cable bill.

Clearly the public needs easy access to financial literacy courses. Too bad we don't see the need to make this a mandatory course of study in our educational system.

Mortgage bankers and brokers have in the last four or five years been raking in cash by the bucket load in the form of commissions paid when mortgages they've originated, close. Many of these people have not needed to do much in the way of prospecting. Instead, their phones have run off the hook as people have jumped on the homeownership and refinancing and take out extra cash bandwagon, despite their ability to pay for their home. No-document loans were readily available without the borrower having to produce documentation that backed up their income. Clearly this practice can and indeed has, lead to substandard loan underwriting processes. Were some of these mortgage bankers and brokers dishonest? Sure. Were all of them dishonest? I think not. To have a massive nationwide conspiracy, where thousands and thousands of people involved in the mortgage banking and mortgage brokering profession got together to create this situation is simply not feasible. Yes, some of the blame does belong with those in the mortgage industry, but they were simply a small cog in the huge machine that created this mess.

Let's discuss real estate agents. In 2007, we bought a home, and also sold a home. The agent we used to purchase our home was absolutely fantastic. In our opinion, she went above and beyond to make our deal happen. She answered every phone call, followed up on every concern and was the epitome of professionalism. We consider this individual to be a friend, and we have sent referrals her way that have resulted in her earning additional commissions. We will continue to recommend her to all who ask or mention that they'd like to buy or sell a home in our area.

The real estate agent, we used to sell our home, could not have been more different. We got our old home ready to sell prior to closing on our new home. We decided to list it as “For Sale by Owner.” In the event that we didn't sell this home on our own, it was our intention to list it with an agent as soon as we had closed on the purchase our new home. Literally, from the day we put the sign in front of our home and listed it on a “For Sale by Owner” website we were inundated with phone calls from real estate agents. We were told many lies and were constantly harassed; although we had already made it quite clear to every agent who called, and there were more to 60 who did; that we were willing to pay half the commission-the same as they would have received had they sold another agent's listing. We also told every agent that called that we had already lined up an agent to sell our home in the event that we chose to no longer sell it ourselves. Our deadline was the closing date of our new home purchase. We did have an interested buyer who shortly after our closing date decided to keep looking so we listed our home with a local agent so that we could concentrate on getting our new home ready for our moving date at the end of the school year. This agent showed our home a maximum of two times and got an offer which we accepted. We ended up getting $1,000 less than we had wanted in a declining Real Estate market. The agents who had called many times to harass us called our listing agent on a number of occasions and he lied telling them that the house was under contract when in fact it wasn't at that time-clearly a breach of our agent's fiduciary duty. Quite frankly an ethical agent would have continued to show our home until closing in the event that the deal fell through.

But wait, there's more. Our agent also acted as the buyer's mortgage broker. At the closing table, we learned that he had signed documents from the buyer stating that he (our agent) represented them and we had signed documents stating that he represented us. We also learned that the buyer had effectively put down approximately 2-3% of the purchase price when financed closing costs were factored into the equation. Their first mortgage had what we thought was a high fixed rate and their second mortgage came with a rate in excess of 8.5%. Because the closing happened in August, literally in the midst of the first wave of the meltdown, if they didn't close on the day they did (August 31st, 2007), Citibank wasn't going to extend their rate. When my wife & I have bought houses in the past, it had always been a very happy day. These people looked absolutely shell-shocked at the closing table. I'm not convinced that they knew just how much their monthly payment was going to be until closing day. We knew down to the penny well in advance having budgeted and planned everything on a spreadsheet. Were these people stupid or just inexperienced and mislead by a greedy combination of real estate agent & mortgage broker? I'm extremely confident that they are intelligent people but inexperienced and taken advantage of by an unscrupulous agent.

The banks are also culpable. Prior to bank deregulation, Savings and Loans provided mortgages to home buyers and kept these loans on their books. Non-performing loans had a negative effect on the S&L's profitability which of course caused tighter lending guidelines such as job stability and decent down payments in order for prospective home buyers to be approved for a mortgage. Way back then, a home buyer had to actually save up enough money for a down payment 10 or even 20% before a bank would ever consider underwriting a mortgage. The checks & balances kept banks solvent and borrowers responsible. Although this approach worked, some cried foul stating that the regulated system was racist and discriminatory-and there certainly was some truth to this. Skipping forward to the present, banks made a bundle on mortgages over the past five or six years. For the most part, they allowed their underwriting criteria to be stretched so far out of alignment that almost anyone could and indeed did, qualify for a mortgage despite their ability to pay. Some folks even applied for and received mortgages for more than the property was worth. Sometimes for as much as 25% more than their property was worth!

Under the prior system, 125% mortgages would not have been possible because of course these loans were held on the banks' books and could have led to losses that would have had to have been absorbed directly by the bank.

So what went wrong? Under the current system, these loans were sold to the big Wall Street investment firms who repackaged them as collateralized mortgage obligations (CMO's), Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS's) and other similar acronyms. These instruments were then sent to the ratings agencies for their blessing and more importantly a letter rating. Many of these structured finance deals receive AAA ratings-the highest ratings available meaning that in theory, these instruments were least likely to default. How does one create a 'triple A' or AAA rated financial instrument out of sub-prime mortgages? Herein lies the magic. These Asset Backed Securities (ABS) are made up of different tranches or slices, each carrying a different risk and reward level. The first dollar of principle and interest is applied to the securities with the highest rating, and the first dollar of loss is applied to the tranche with the lowest ratings. The lower slices are designed to provide a security blanket that in theory protects the higher-rated securities. The investment banks that package or 'structure' these securities in order to earn fat fees when they sell them to investors are the same entities that pay the ratings agencies to rate these instruments. Clearly the possibility for conflict of interest is present. If investors and not the investment banks that stand to rake in millions in fees were to pay for the rating, the potential for this conflict of interest would be negated. Furthermore, the investment banks have a vested interest in convincing the ratings agencies of the credit worthiness of these securities.

So we've already pointed fingers at homeowners, some greedy, many more I suspect, naïve or uninformed, real estate agents-one out of more than 60 in my experience was a gem, mortgage brokers & bankers, banks, Wall Street and ratings agencies so who's left? The Federal Reserve and the Government of course.

The Fed as its known is responsible of the country's monetary policy and for supervision and regulation of banks. This is the definition of the Fed's roles in their own words:

Monetary Policy

The Fed is best known for its role in making and carrying out the country's monetary policy-that is, for influencing money and credit conditions in the economy in order to promote the goals of high employment, sustainable growth, and stable prices.

The long-term goal of the Fed's monetary policy is to ensure that money and credit grow sufficiently to encourage non-inflationary economic expansion.

The Fed cannot guarantee that our economy will grow at a healthy pace, or that everyone will have a job. The attainment of these goals depends on the decisions of millions of people around the country. Decisions regarding how much to spend and how much to save, how much to invest in acquiring skills and education, how much to spend on new plant and equipment, or how many hours a week to work may be some of them.

What the Fed can do, is create an environment that is conducive to healthy economic growth. It does so by pursuing a goal of price stability-that is, by trying to prevent inflation from becoming a problem.

Inflation is defined as a sustained increase in prices over a period of time.

A stable level of prices is most conducive to maximum sustained output and employment. Also, stable prices encourage saving and, indirectly, capital formation because it prevents the erosion of asset values by unanticipated inflation.

Inflation causes many distortions in the market. Inflation:

· hurts people with fixed income-when prices rise consumers cannot buy as much as they could previously

· discourages savings

· reduces economic growth because the economy needs a certain level of savings to finance investments that boost economic growth

· makes it harder for businesses to plan-it is difficult to decide how much to produce, because businesses can't predict the demand for their product at the higher prices they will have to charge in order to cover their costs

Bank Regulation & Supervision

The Fed is one of the several Government agencies that share responsibility for ensuring the safety and soundness of our banking system. The Fed has primary responsibility for supervising bank holding companies, financial holding companies, state-chartered banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System, and the Edge Act and agreement corporations, through which U.S. banking organizations operate abroad.

The Fed and other agencies share the responsibility of overseeing the operation of foreign banking organizations in the United States. To insure that the banking system remains competitive and operates in the public interest, the Fed considers applications by banks for mergers or to open new branches.

The passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act in November 1999, was the culmination of a multi-decade effort to eliminate many of the restrictions on the activities of banking organizations.

Some of the main provisions of the GLB are:

· Repeals the existing limitations on the ability of banks to affiliate with securities and insurance firms

· Creates a new organizational form that allows banking organizations to carry new powers. This new entity called a "financial holding company," (FHC) and its non-banking subsidiaries are allowed to engage in financial activities such as insurance and securities underwriting

The Fed's enlarged role as an umbrella supervisor of FHCs is similar to its role in supervising bank holding companies. The Federal Reserve Banks will supervise and regulate the FHCs while each affiliate is still overseen by its traditional functional regulator.

The Fed has to delineate the financial relationship between a bank and other FHC affiliates. Its primary goal is to establish barriers protecting depository institutions from the problems of a failing affiliate. To do this efficiently the Fed has to ensure increased communication, cooperation, and coordination with the many supervisors of the more diversified FHCs.

The Fed has access to data on risks across the entire organization, as well as information on the firm's management of those risks. Regulators will be in a position to evaluate and presumably act on risks that threaten the safety and soundness of the insured banks.

It would appear that the Fed has failed to curb housing inflation which played a role in this entire debacle then made matters worse and in their efforts or lack there of, to properly supervise banking institutions.

Finally the government, a.k.a. Uncle Sam, the big Kahuna 10,000 pound elephant etc. Where do we begin? How about with: 'Where were they?'

It now appears that after millions of horses are out of the barn (some horses ran, others were foreclosed upon) the government wants to step in with a bailout to save the rest. While nobody wants to see people lose their homes, the question that must be raised is this: What about all those of us who were responsible? Those of us, who scrimped and saved up a decent down payment, bought less-house than we could afford and who live below our means? Many of us drive older cars and keep them longer. We don't run out and buy the latest and greatest at inflated prices, we watch, wait and budget.

When the World Trade Center was attacked, families who decided not to sue received government payouts and we certainly don't begrudge them as I'm sure that given the choice, they'd prefer to still have their loved-ones over the money. The problem, in typical government fashion is that those who were responsible and had insurance policies in place received less than those who were irresponsible and didn't plan ahead. I'm not talking about dishwashers at Windows on the World and blue collar workers; I'm talking about executives, traders and people who should have known better.

Now our government, the same government that sat by idly watching as this bubble got bigger and bigger despite many warnings, wants to step in and bailout people who are in danger of losing their homes. There has been no talk about educating people, let's not teach people to fish, rather, let's give them a fish and bail them out once again at the expense of those who are responsible.

Clearly, by keeping the majority of the population financially ignorant, there is a lot of money to be made by the poverty industry.

How To Write A Successful Business Plan

by: Jason Kay

Whether you are planning to start a brand-new business, expand an existing company, or get financing for a business venture, you will need to write a business plan. A business plan not only lends your business a sense of credibility, but also helps you to cover all your bases, increasing your chances of success.

Although writing a business plan can be a lengthy, intimidating project, it is not necessarily difficult. Here is an overview of how to write a successful business plan.

What to Include in Your Business Plan

Your business plan needs to demonstrate that you have thoroughly considered all aspects of running your business. To that end, the standard business plan has nine major sections, covering everything from your business’s mission statement to a detailed financial analysis.

Executive Summary

The first – and most important – section of your business plan is the executive summary. This section is so important that it should literally be the first thing the reader sees – even before the table of contents! However, it should also be written last, as you’ll have a better understanding of the overall message of your business plan after you’ve researched and written the other sections.

One of the most important parts of the executive summary is the mission statement. The mission statement is only three or four sentences long, but it should pack the most punch out of everything else in your business plan: Those four sentences are responsible for not only defining your business, but also capturing the interest of your reader.

The rest of your executive summary should fill in the important details that the mission statement glosses over. For instance, your executive summary should include a short history of the business, including founder profiles and start date; a current snapshot, listing locations, numbers of employees, and products or services offered; and a summary of future plans and goals.

This section is a candidate for a bulleted format, which allows you to list main points in a manner that is easy to scan. Avoid using too much detail – remember, this section is a summary. A page or two is usually sufficient for an executive summary.

Market Analysis

The next section of your business plan focuses on market analysis. In order to show that your business has a reasonable chance for success, you will need to thoroughly research the industry and the market you intend to sell to. No bank or investor is going to back a doomed venture, so this section is sure to fall under especially close scrutiny if you are looking for financing.

Your market analysis should describe your industry, including the size, growth rate, and trends that could affect the industry. This section should also describe your target market – that is, the type or group of customers that your company intends to serve. The description of your target market should include detail such as:

• Distinguishing characteristics
• The needs your company or product line will meet
• What media and/or marketing methods you’ll use to reach them
• What percentage of your target market you expect to be able to wrest away from your competitors

In addition, your market analysis should include the results of any market tests you have done, and an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

Company Description

After your market analysis, your business plan will need to include a description of your company. This section should describe:

• The nature of your business
• The needs of the market
• How your business will meet these needs
• Your target market, including specific individuals and/or organizations
• The factors that set you apart from your competition and make you likely to succeed

Although some of these things overlap with the previous section, they are still necessary parts of your company description. Each section of your business plan should have the ability to stand on its own if need be. In other words, the company description should thoroughly describe your company, even if certain aspects are covered in other sections.

Organization and Management

Once you have described the nature and purpose of your company, you will need to explain your staff setup. This section should include:

• The division of labor – how company processes are divided among the staff
• The management hierarchy
• Profiles of the company’s owner(s), management personnel, and the Board of Directors
• Employee incentives, such as salary, benefits packages, and bonuses

This goal of this section is to demonstrate not only good organization within the company, but also the ability to create loyalty in your employees. Long-term employees minimize human resource costs and increase a business’s chances for success, so banks and investors will want to see that you have an effective system in place for maintaining your staff.

Marketing and Sales Management

The purpose of the marketing and sales section of your business plan is to outline your strategies for marketing your products or services. This section also plans for company growth by describing how the growth could take place.

The section should describe your company’s:

• Marketing methods
• Distributions methods
• Type of sales force
• Sales activities
• Growth strategies

Product or Services

Following the marketing section of your business plan, you will need a section focusing on the product or services your business offers. This is more than a simple description of your product or services, though. You will also need to include:

• The specific benefits your product or service offers customers
• The specific needs of the market, and how your product will meet them
• The advantages your product has over your competitors
• Any copyright, trade secret, or patent information pertaining to your product
• Where any new products or services are in the research and development process
• Current industry research that you could use in the development of products and services

Funding Request

Only once you have described your business from head to toe are you ready to detail your funding needs. This section should include everything a bank or investor needs in order to understand what type of funding you want:

• How much money you need now
• How much money you think you will need over the next five years
• How the money you borrow will be used
• How long you will need funding
• What type of funding you want (i.e. loans, investors, etc.)
• Any other terms you want the funding arrangement to include

Financials

The financials section in your business plan supports your request for outside funding. This section provides an analysis of your company’s prospective financial success. The section also details your company’s financial track record for the past three to five years, unless you are seeking financing for a startup business.

The financials section should include:

• Company income statements for prior years
• Balance sheets for prior years
• Cash flow statements for prior years
• Forecasted company income statements
• Forecasted balance sheets
• Forecasted cash flow statements
• Projections for the next five years – every month or quarter for the first year, with longer intervals for the remaining years
• Collateral you can use to secure a loan

The financials section is a great place to include visuals such as graphs, particularly if you predict a positive trend in your projected financials. A graph allows the reader to quickly take in this information, and may do a better job of encouraging a bank or investor to finance your business. However, be sure that the amount of financing you are requesting is in keeping with your projected financials – no matter how impressive your projections are, if you are asking for more money than is warranted, no bank or investor will give it to you.

Appendices

The appendix is the final section in your business plan. Essentially, this is where you put all of the information that doesn’t fit in the other eight sections, but that someone – particularly a bank or investor – might need to see.

For instance, the market analysis section of your business plan may list the results of market studies you have done as part of your market research. Rather than listing the details of the studies in that section, where they will appear cumbersome and detract from the flow of your business plan, you can provide this information in an appendix.

Other information that should be relegated to an appendix includes:

• Credit histories for both you and your business
• Letters of reference
• References that have bearing on your company and your product or service, such as magazines or books on the topic
• Company licenses and patents
• Copies of contracts, leases, and other legal documents
• Resumes of your top managers
• Names of business consultants, such as your accountant and attorney

Writing a Successful Business Plan

Despite the quantity of information contained in your business plan, it should be laid out in a format that is easy to read. Just like with any piece of business writing, it is important to craft your business plan with your intended audience in mind – and the bankers, investors, and other busy professionals who will read your business plan almost certainly won’t have time to read a tedious document with long-winded paragraphs and large blocks of text.

Business plans for startup companies and company expansions are typically between twenty to forty pages long, but formatting actually accounts for a lot of this length. A strong business plan uses bullet points throughout to break up long sections and highlight its main points. Visuals such as tables and charts are also used to quickly relay specific information, such as trends in sales and other financial information. These techniques ensure that the reader can skim the business plan quickly and efficiently.

Think of your audience as only having fifteen minutes to spend on each business plan that comes across their desks. In that fifteen minutes, you not only have to relay your most important points, but also convince the reader that your business venture merits a financial investment. Your best bet is a well-researched business plan, with an organized, easy-to-read format and clear, confident prose.

Internet And Business Online – The Act Of Interdependence

by: Scott Lindsay

The best role of business online is that of interdependency. We’ve all heard the old saying, “No man is an island.” When it comes to online business this is especially true.

If a business owner who takes their business into the online world determines they will be self reliant and never accept the help of anyone then that individual will not be in business long enough to change their minds.

It is accepted fact that the greatest tool for long-term exposure to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without it potential customers can’t find you. It is unreasonable to expect that you can adequately develop a website without optimizing your website for the best possible search engine ranking.

Search engines also place a high value on sites that have links placed on existing sites. These ‘backlinks’ demonstrate to search engines that others trust your site. By placing your link on their website these other businesses indicate a trust and recommendation for your site.

In effect the two strategies listed above rely exclusively on what others can do for you when it comes to your online business.

Shirley Temple once proclaimed in her movie Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, “I’m very self-reliant.” American westerns are filled with lines dealing with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and holding down the fort. Many of us have grown up to believe if we want something done right we have to do it ourselves.

This thinking is in opposition to the rules associated with an online business.

The online world can only exist because people share. Individuals share technology, but the also share links, reviews, blogs, forums and a wide range of other marketing strategies that find a commingling of interdependency.

In online business you are as dependent on others as they may be on you. Unlike the word ‘dependent’, the term interdependent indicates a mutual dependency. In other words you are depending on others to help provide links back to your site while they are equally dependent on you (or others) for the success of their business.

Have you really taken a proactive approach to networking? It’s possible you are reading this today and you’ve never considered asking someone else to place a link to your site on his or her online business site.

It can feel awkward depending on others to achieve online success especially if you’ve been lead to believe reliance on others is also a sign of imposing on their otherwise brilliant generosity.

I suppose it could be a deep-seated sense of pride that makes it hard to consider the need to ask others for help. However, the truth is depending on others is really what has made the Internet possible. The growth of this online world is comprised of a link of computers, networks and servers that are connected in a way that provides the maximum benefit for all.

Building an online business can feel a bit like trying to build a house of cards. Without the ability to rely on the other ‘cards’ around you it is virtually impossible to build.

Interdependence. This is the essence of online business.

Get Ready to have Sony Ericsson Hikaru?!

Are you ready to forget the Xperia X1? Probably not, but listen up here: Sony Ericsson is getting ready to release a new touchscreen handset that will bring 8GB of internal memory and an 8 Megapixel camera.

This handset’s codename is Sony Ericsson Hikaru and, according to the SEMC Blog, it will be the next high-end slider of the Swedish-Japanese manufacturer.

For the moment, it’s not clear where Hikaru will fit into Sony Ericsson’s range of products. Will it be a Walkman, a Cyber-shot, or perhaps a G-series? Who knows?

Also, it’s not clear if it will have an alphanumeric or a QWERTY keyboard, but I guess any of these two would be nice to have, together with the phone’s supposedly large touchscreen display.

Since there’s no image with the real Sony Ericsson Hikaru, I’ve played around a bit and made a mockup of it, based on SE’s W960 model. Here it is:

The official Hikaru most probably doesn’t look like this. Let’s hope it will actually look better.

Apart from Hikaru, a Sony Ericsson Twiggy is also said to come next year. It will be the successor of W350, thus it’s a Walkman phone.

Sony Ericsson Twiggy will have a 240 x 320 pixels display, a 3 MP camera and two color versions. It should be on sale starting the second quarter of 2009. No image with it yet.

How to Shop for the Best GPS PDA Accessories

by: R James Cook

Features and Price Together Are the Best Determining Factors When Shopping for GPS PDA Accessories

There have been PDA accessories ever since the first PDA was built, but GPS PDA accessories are a relatively new class of product. They have become very popular in a short time, and because of this there is a wide variety available, which which can make it hard to decide just which GPS PDA accessory you want to buy.

Once you have decided to buy one, there are a few things you should keep in mind, and a few things you should look into before purchasing a GPS PDA accessory. After all, many of the GPS products on the market can be very pricey, and you don't want to rush out and buy one only to discover that it doesn't fit your needs, or that another product does the same thing cheaper.

What Features Do You Really Need?

To get the most value for your money when shopping for GPS PDA accessories, first make a list of the features you absolutely cannot live without. Once you have done this, make a second list of the features that you would like to have, but don't require. These can be things like a talking GPS, driving directions and map locations, and whether or not you want other things incorporated in the GPS PDA accessory such as a calendar or an MP3 player.

Most likely you will be able to find plenty of GPS PDA accessories which offer everything on your must-have list. This is where your other list comes in; use it to narrow down your options be eliminating the products that don't offer the extra features you are looking for. By doing this, you can determine which features are worth the extra price to you, which will allow you to come up with a short list of the products that are the best fit for your needs.

Once You Have Found the Perfect Product

The final consideration to make sure you get the best in GPS PDA accessories is, of course, the price. Just because you have managed to find a great GPS PDA accessory which not only has all the features you need, but many of the features you want, does not mean that you can get the best in the business just because you pay an arm and a leg for it.

You will of course want to check the pricing in your local stores on the GPS PDA accessories you want, but don't stop your search there. There are many fantastic deals on the internet, both on products you can find in the local brick and mortar stores, and on products that you may only be able to find online. One of the great things about shopping on websites like Amazon.com and eBay is that you can not only score good deals, but you can also usually find a much wider selection than is available in your local stores. The free shipping offered by many web store just makes online shopping even more worth it.