Make Money Online

Marketing your practice on search engines is attractive to a lot of coaches. The traffic can be used to grow your subscriber list, sell products and get more clients. It can be a great way to grow your practice.

But it can also be a big disappointing nightmare.

A lot of businesses have pumped a lot of time and money into search engine marketing efforts (SEO) only to find them useless.

One main cause of this is “putting the carriage before the horse.”In other words, you attempt to get high search engine rankings before you have a solid, sound web site.

What often happens?

Your web site can get rejected or even banned from search engines if it is created by a web designer who is not aware of search engine technicalities.
You can waste your money when you try to register with search engines.

Some charge a non-refundable fee for submitting your web site and it does NOT guarantee you will be included. If your site isn’t well done, you get rejected lose your money.

Your pages become invisible. If your site isn’t coded the right way, then a lot of your content won’t get into the search engine for people to find or they are listed on page 1,334,203 … which virtually no one will visit.

On a more content-based level, if your site is not interesting and valuable, others will be hesitant to link to it. Good links are vital to getting good rankings.

If your site isn’t effective at converting traffic, you won’t sell as many products or attract as many clients. You won’t get as many newsletter subscribers.

With all the information and hype out there it can be easy to get wrapped up in the dream of high traffic leading to tons of business. I’ve seen others make this mistake. I’ve blundered myself.

So, how do you saddle-up your horse and oil the buggy to get the most from your search engine marketing?

There is a lot of information on developing a good web site. Be sure to focus special attention on the “marketing”of a good web site. Here are some main points to guide you.

• Make sure your site works “without search engines.”That is, make sure the traffic you are sending to it now, such as people from networking, are doing what you want on your site.
• Make sure your site is “search engine friendly.”This means to make sure that the code was designed to enable search engines to access the information on your site. This means getting a technically savvy search engine expert on hand during the creation of your site.
• Make sure you have a target audience. This is a good idea in general for your business, but it’s also critical that it’s expressed on your web site. Make sure your site is appealing to that target audience.
• Make sure your site answers basic usability questions such as, “What is this site about?”"Where do I begin?”and “Why should I be here and not somewhere else?”Answers to these questions will get your visitors moving through your web site.
• Make sure your site is easy to navigate. Sit down with at least one person who is in your target audience and watch them use your site. Seeing people do everything other than what you intended is often an eye-opening experience … even for the most advanced web designers.
• Make sure your site will capture your target audience in different “buy states.”Some visitors will be ready to buy into subscribing to your newsletter. Some will be ready to buy an ebook. Some will want to buy your one-on-one service.

Search engines are great. They can take your business to higher levels. But without solid horse and buggy combo, you may be in for a bumpy ride.

For starters, what is a blog? In general terms, it is a sort of interactive, regularly updated online journal. A blog owner is called a blogger, the activity of keeping a blog is called blogging, and the blogging community and everything related to blogging is collectively known as the blogosphere.

How are blogs created? There are several options. The cost-free way is to start a blog at one of the countless free blog services, such as the Google service called blogger. Another option is to use one of the free blog scripts and install it at a paid or free hosting service. Such free blog scripts are also numerous, the most popular of them being wordpress. It is also possible to sign up for a paid hosting service with an already installed wordpress blog, but this service is somewhat costlier.

Now let’s assume that we already have a blog. The next question is: Where do we get content? Choose the subject for your blog. It may be your professional occupation or hobby. In any case, you must have solid knowledge of the subject. For instance, if you are a proctologist, you may write about hemorrhoids, their treatment, prevention and suchlike as long as these are not scientific articles, but materials written in layman&s language. To give you a more practical example, if your hobby is dogs, write about them and people will enjoy it. There is another way to get content. The web has many services offering free articles. All you have to do is select the most interesting ones and publish them. In this way you can quickly fill your blog with content.

Moving on to the question of promoting your blog, it is worth noting that blogs are better indexed by search engines than ordinary web sites due to the specifics of the algorithm used in blogs. For instance, a new article in a well-promoted blog may appear on the search engine results page already on the following day. Of course, this requires registration in special catalogs devoted to blogs, which is what you will do next. Another way is to publish articles with a link to your blog. There are also services meant for just this purpose.

But most importantly, a search engine needs external links to your blog from other web sites. These should be good links generating heavy traffic. What does it mean? It means that ideally the link should be on the web site&s main page. What’s more, this page should have a PR rating of at least 4 (PR or Google Page Rank reflects the significance of any particular web page). Five or six such links will do more than hundreds of other ordinary links. How can you get such links? There are also various options. For instance, you can find a resource thematically related to your blog and offer its owners to reciprocate links. Finally, you can buy such links. The higher the web site&s PR rating, the more such links will cost you.

Now let’s move on to the question of how you can earn money from your own blog. The scheme is quite simple: traffic is converted into money. Your income increases proportionately with the traffic volume. One way to earn from a blog is to place ads, which is done most often through google adwords. Another way is to participate in partnership programs associated with the subject of your blog. So if your blog is devoted to dogs, you should advertise flea control products and other dog-related merchandise. A third way is to sell your own merchandise or services. Of course, you can combine several ways of generating income in a single blog. Last but not least, remember that strength is in numbers, which is why it’s a good idea to maintain several resources at the same time.

Starting a business is exciting and nerve-wracking. It will be one of the biggest investments you’ll make during your lifetime. Not just financially, but emotionally as well. Doing it right will mean taking on a lot of responsibilities and making a lot of sacrifices. It will also mean working harder than you ever have before.

For these reasons, business ownership is not for everyone. If you don’t have the right skills, personality, and commitment to operate a business, you’ll be in trouble before you make your first sale. So before you begin planning your E-Commerce business, you need to take a hard look at yourself, your family, and your finances, and give honest answers to some very important questions.

The following questions wiH help you weigh your personal characteristics and beliefs against the realities of business ownership. Don’t worry if you find that a few of the questions reveal doubts or weaknesses. Nobody&s a perfect match for any profession. But if you find many of the questions troubling, you may want to rethink your decision to go into business.

1) Are you willing to accept the responsibility of operating your own business ?

Forget the tidy little set of responsibilities that came with a position in corporate life. When you run a business, you’re in charge of everything—from opening the doors in the morning to cleaning up at night. Then when you go home, you worry.
The hours are long, there’s a high degree of stress, and there’s always too much to do and not enough time to do it. You&ll have to deal with your customers and your employees. You&ll be responsible for the finances of the business and dealing with taxes. And you’ll need to fill out a lot of forms and sign a lot of checks.

Make sure you understand what you’re getting into. As a business owner, you’ll have more responsibilities than you’ve ever had before, no matter what your previous jobs have been. If you understand this simple fact, you’ll be ready to take your responsibilities on.

2) Are you comfortable making hard decisions ?

As the owner of a business, you’ll also have to make many decisions that affect the business, your livelihood, and that of your employees. Many times thev/11 be tough to make, including the decision to lay people off if your business falls on hard times. It will require decisiveness, mental toughness, and resolve. If you have trouble when faced with tough choices, this could be a problem area.

Do you think owning your own business is the way to easy money ?

Think again. Many people actually end up sacrificing income to open their businesses, at least at first. That’s the price they&re willing to pay for independence.
If you’re thinking of giving up a promising career and a lucrative income to start your business, be realistic about what your financial needs are and whether or not the business will meet those needs. Remember, you’re building a business.

It may take you a number of years to get to the income level you want or need. On the other hand, you may decide that you’re willing to sacrifice some money for the reward of being your own boss. Many people have found it to be worth every penny.

3) Are you starting a business out of desperation N?

This is a very real concern, particularly in light of the huge number of experienced businessmen and businesswomen who have been cast adrift in the job market through corporate downsizing in recent years. If you’re one of these people and are thinking about starting a business because you think it’s your only option, be very careful. Yes, it can be the answer to your future security, but only if you’re willing to make the necessary commitments and sacrifices. The world of business ownership is vastly different from the corporate world. Make sure you recognize the differences before you make the move.

4) Are you well organized ?

The day-to-day operation of your business is going to require you to assume many responsibilities. Let’s consider an average day. You may need to do the payroll, talk to suppliers, pay a few bills, work on a new advertising pamphlet, and prepare some tax forms. At the same time you’ll be filling orders and making sure they get sent out on time. Then there’s always the unexpected—your computer bombs or the air-conditioning conks out.

As a business owner, you’ll need to keep many balls in the air at one time. Your ability to juggle all these responsibilities will directly affect your success. If you’re well organized, you’ll have a list of the things you need to do, and you’ll methodically go through it during the course of the day. If you’re interrupted, you’ll pick up where you left off after you’ve dealt with the problem. If you’re still not through at the end of the day, you’ll sit there and work until you’ve finished. Procrastinators do not do well in business. If you get behind, you’re sunk.

5) Are you creative ?

It’s an asset to any business. No matter how great your product, you’re not going to be the only one selling it. Marketing and advertising are critical to getting customers& attention and encouraging them to buy. If you have a creative streak—whether it be copywriting, graphic design, or even an offbeat sense of humor—it will be an invaluable asset to your business.

T his is doubly true in E-Commerce . Since your customers can’t see the items they&re purchasing “in the flesh,” so to speak, they need to be enticed by the visual presentation and written description in your promotional materials.

6) Are you flexible ?

In business, if an idea or plan doesn’t work, you can’t let yourself waste time, energy, and emotion bemoaning its failure. You need to quickly come up with an alternative solution. Flexibility and adaptability are the key. You&ll need to stay focused to achieve your goal, but you may need to try several different paths to get there.

In E-Commerce order, for example, one marketing approach may work for a while and then stall. At that point you’ll need to come up with something new. Remember, every business plan and every business

can benefit from a fresh look every once in a while, even when things seem to be going along just fine.

7) Are you goal orientated ?

This trait is obviously helpful in all parts of life, but it’s particularly helpful in business. As a business owner, your goals will be defined in very simple, concrete terms—gross sales and net profit.

A good businessperson approaches each year with new goals and uses them as motivating forces throughout the year. Let’s say gross sales for your first year of operation were $500,000 and your net profit was $ 100,000. For the following year, you might set as your goal a 20 percent increase, or $ 600,000and $ 120,000. Achieving or surpassing those figures will drive you day after day.
Goal-oriented people also plan for the future. Eventually, you may want to expand your product selection and your target market. You&ll have a long-term plan that includes the timing of your expansion and what every aspect of your business will do to accommodate increased volume.

Are you an optimist ?

Having the right mental attitude is important for every aspect of life. When you run into hard times, keeping an upbeat attitude and looking for the positive side of things is critical to riding out the storm.

This is particularly true in business. By nature, it’s a trip with peaks and valleys. For instance, the hardest time for any business is the first year or two. You may spend months getting things ready to go, carefully selecting the merchandise you’ll carry, and getting your advertising strategy together. Then you’ll send out your first e-mailing and wait anxiously for the phone to begin ringing off the hook and your emailbox to be jammed with orders.

But nothing happens. Maybe a few orders trickle in, or you get some phone calls with questions about certain items. This isn’t unusual, but even knowing that, you’ll still worry. If you’re the type of person who gets down when things don’t quite go the way you&d like, you might have trouble with the roller coaster ride that any business will take you on. Keeping a positive mental attitude is essential to weathering the bad times and working hard to make the good ones arrive that much sooner.

9 ) Have you any experience you can use in running the business ?

If you have, it will make learning the business a lot easier. Experience in sales, accounting, advertising, marketing, personnel management, taxes, or any other business-related responsibility is a definite plus for a potential business owner.
Experience with computers is mandatory since in E-Commerce of course computers are your lifeblood .

You have to have hands on experience with computers both hardware and software and not be intimidated by comouter experts and geeeks but rather be able to work with these otten eccentric individuals who command often unique skills.

10 ) Do you enjoy workling with people ?

One of the painful realities of being in retail is the fact that the customer is always right. Granted, running a E-Commerce business distances you from your customers in the sense that there’s rarely face-to-face contact. But that doesn’t mean you don’t owe them the same service and courtesy you would if they were standing right in front of you.

As an E-Commerce retailer, you’ll have the same problems with customers that storefront retailers experience. You&ll have complaints about your merchandise, your prices, your service, your policies, and your employees. Believe me, no matter how well you think you have things organized, someone will find fault with them.

This is where tact, patience, and understanding come in. When a customer is unhappy, you must put up with their behavior and try to amend the situation. The last thing your business needs is a bad reputation. If you allow a customer to go away unsatisfied, you can be sure the person will tell all their friends how terrible you are. That, in turn, will keep a lot of potential customers from becoming regular customers.

So there will be times when you’ll have to bite the bullet and make amends quickly and courteously when you&d really like to tell the customer to take a hike. Because you’re dealing with someone who may be halfway across the country, it may take a personal phone call, an overnight special delivery, or a refund with a handwritten note saying you’re sorry the purchase didn’t work out but you look forward to helping them in the future. Just make sure you leave the customer happy. .You&ll also have to deal with the people who work for you. As the owner of a business, your behavior will set the standard for your employees& behavior. If you’re negative and critical, they&ll be negative and critical. But if you’re cheerful and upbeat, that will also be reflected in their behavior.

You&ll have to be tough at times. Managing people isn’t easy. If you’re lucky, most of your employees will be pleasant, will work hard, and will contribute positively to the business. But you’ll also have a few who will turn out to be unpleasant, lazy, incompetent, or even dishonest. Motivating them will be a challenge. If you can’t change their behavior, you have to be able to fire them.

11) Are you comfortable dealing with money ?

Some people are terribly inept at finances. Others can do it but hate it. Like it or not, financial management is an inescapable fact of business ownership. You&ll be dealing with complex monetary issues, from financing the business to handling the day-to-day receipts. You&ll be responsible for paying the bills, making the bank deposits, doing the payroll, and sending in withholding taxes and quarterly reports to the IRS and the state. You may be handling substantial amounts of cash, and there are certain risks inherent in that responsibility.

You&ll also be making business plans. These are detailed projections of your income and expenses for a given period of time, usually three months, six months, or a year. In some ways, they&re quite simple—you want to maximize your income and minimize your expenses. But they take careful planning and budgeting. What are the minimum staffing expenses going to be to operate the business? What will your overhead and utilities be? How much money can you spend on advertising? When are the taxes due? How will you determine the price of your products? What will you charge for shipping and handling?

Any financial experience you may have had will help you with this aspect of your business. And if you like this type of activity, it will be to your advantage. But if you find it burdensome, you’ll have to be ready to deal with it.

12 ) Are you financially prepared to open a business ?

Starting any business requires money. The nice thing about E-Commerce is that you can make it about as bare-bones as you care to, particularly if you’re starting a small operation that you’ll operate in your spare time. Many people have started E-Commerce businesses for just a relatively small amount of capital .

But the bigger your dreams, the more money you’re going to need. If you’re planning a full-time E-Commerce business with numerous products, the start-up costs will be considerably higher. Then a whole new batch of considerations comes into play. Do you have the financial reserves to support you and your family for a period of time until business picks up? Some business advisers say you should have enough on hand to survive for a year with no income whatsoever. While that may be an unrealistic goal, you do need to consider what happens if the business fails altogether. Do you have the resources to weather such a catastrophe?

Before you begin planning your business, you need to take a careful look at your finances. How much of your available capital are you willing to risk? Are you willing to personally sign for a business loan? What do you have to offer as collateral? How much cash will you have in reserve for emergencies? If you don’t have enough to start the business yourself, are you willing to take on a partner or partners? Are you staking your entire financial future on the business?

Undercapitalization is the main cause of failure for small businesses in the United States. Yet many people, caught up in the entrepreneurial fever, continue to start businesses on a shoestring, woefully unprepared to deal with the bad times. If you can’t start your business with a comfortable financial cushion beneath you, you may be taking a risk you can’t afford.

13 ) Is your family ready to amke the committment

Whether your family is actively involved in the business or not, business ownership is going to have a huge effect on them. If you’re the only one involved in its day-to-day operation, the rest of the family isn’t going to see you very much. If they&re used to having you around on evenings and weekends, this may cause problems.
Your spouse may be unhappy having less time to go out to dinner or the mov
ies. Your absence may also mean he or she is going to have to assume a lot more responsibility at home— chauffeuring the kids here and there, helping with homework, doing the shopping, cooking the meals, cleaning the house, paying the bills, and all the other odds and ends that are part of day-to-day life.

Your kids may have to make some big adjustments, too. You might not be available for Little League games, dance recitals, school plays, and all the other events of childhood.

There may also be some financial adjustments for your family. If you’re like most fledgling business owners, you’ll be running a tight ship for a few years. Your family will have to realize there might not be money for some of the luxuries they used to take for granted.

It’s extremely important to think about potential family problems early in the process. Sit everyone down together and tell them what you’re thinking of doing. Make sure they know what it will mean to the family&s day-to-day routine and find out how they feel about it. Their support will make your life a lot easier. You’re going to have enough stress just handling the business. The last thing you’ll need is a family crisis.

The other side of the coin is having your family members working in the business with you. The dynamics of family businesses can be quite volatile, and you’ll want to make sure everyone can get along. A major question will be, Who&s the boss? Are the lines of authority clearly drawn? Are you and your spouse going to be equals in ownership and operation of the business? If so, are you able to work together cheerfully and consider each other&s opinions? If you are, you’ll probably have no problem running the company together. But if you can’t even agree on what kind of soap to use, you may have trouble.

14 ) can you handle stress ?

It comes with the territory. Long hours, endless responsibility, dealing with customers, worrying about money—these can take a huge emotional toll. Some people thrive on stress. It actually makes them perform better. They stay calm in a crisis and can react quickly to change. Others fall apart when things get too hectic. Which kind of person are you?

15 ) Are you in good health ?

Running a business can be physically taxing as well. You may have to spend a lot of time on your feet and not get as much sleep as you&d like. You may not have as much time to eat properly or exercise regularly. There may be activities in the business that require a fair amount of physical strength.Take an inventory of your physical health. Do you have any chronic problems that might prevent you from operating the business efficiently? Remember, when you own the business, you have to be there day after day. A long absence because of a serious illness could spell disaster.

These questions may be heart wrenching and difficult to consider but are essential if you are to consider whether you are ready willing and able to run your own E-Commerce BUSINESS?

There has been an explosion in the number of wholesale companies over the past 5 years. A great majority of this growth can be attributed to the growth of the Internet. The Internet offers the small-time operator a place to market their products without having to spend a fortune in a physical store front. The number of people that can now sell products is no longer restricted to the store owners, so we now have a huge population of Internet entrepreneurs looking for products to sell. This big demand created a very big supply of so-called companies claiming to be wholesale companies specializing in selling wholesale products to Internet entrepreneurs.

Are all of these new wholesale companies really selling wholesale products? The short answer is absolutely not! Not even close… but let’s go over the longer answer so you can get an idea of what types of operations the majority of these so-called wholesale companies operate.

If I was forced to make my best guess of the percentage of true wholesale companies behind all the Internet and Opportunity magazine advertisements, I’d say that maybe, just maybe, 0.5% of those companies is an actual lagitimate wholesale company. Obviously that means I think that 99.5% are not true wholesale compaines.

If a majority of the wholesale companies being advertised are not true wholesale companies, then what are they and where are they getting their products? They are likely just middleman operating within a chain of middleman.

A Middleman-chain occurs when a business purchases its resale products from one wholesale company, who in turn purchases the products from another wholesale company, which may also purchase the products from yet another wholesale company, and so on. Note: I am using the term &wholesale& very loosely here.

For example, let us say you have a resale business and you are buying products from a wholesaler, who we will call Wholesaler-A, at 20% discount. It is likely that Wholesaler-A is actually purchasing the same products from another wholesaler; let us call them Wholesaler-B. Wholesaler-B may get the products for a 40% discount and then sell them to Wholesaler-A at the 30% discount level, thus making 10% profit. There may even be another level, Wholesaler-C, which gets the products for a 50% discount and then sells them to Wholesale-B at 40% discount, making another 10% profit. See a graphical representation of this process at http://www.victorykey.com/images/middleman_chain.gif.

As you can see from the diagram in the above link, there can be multiple layers of wholesalers creating a chain of middlemen that you simply cannot afford.

As a result of middleman-chaining, each layer adds on its profit and you are left unable to compete because you are not buying the products at a low enough price to stay in business. If you do, by chance, get orders, each company in the chain is a point of failure in your transaction.

For example, let us assume you have a source for a product which is in high demand and you are paying what you believe to be a true wholesale price, say 20% discount. You then launch an advertising campaign that pulls in a large number of orders only to find that one of your back-end suppliers somewhere up the chain cannot handle the volume. Your customers obviously want their money back (including shipping and handling) and you find that you have lost a lot of money in advertising and created a bunch of angry customers that will likely never buy from you again!

One question you may be asking is why doesn’t every wholesaler just buy from the manufacture and get the deepest discount? The answer is simple – not all wholesalers (or companies claiming to be wholesalers) can afford to purchase the minimum bulk-order requirements that a manufacture requires. Secondly, many manufactures only do business with companies that are established. So now you are left to do business with a level-1 wholesaler (Wholesaler-C in above diagram), which can be very profitable if the products have demand. However, a level-1 wholesaler may also require a bulk purchase that is outside the budget of many small home business operators, and/or they simply may not want to do business with a small home business. Eventually you may find that a higher-level wholesaler (level-2, level-3, or higher) is all that is available to the home business operator, and you simply can not make any significant money at this level. Unfortunately, just about every wholesaler you see advertising in the opportunity magazines or Internet is a level-2 or higher wholesaler.

Now, armed with the above knowledge of middleman-chaining, make sure you take a closer look at all those wholesale product advertisements before taking out your wallet!

Sincerely,

Michael Ellis

As a consumer, you will find many great deals on items that you want and need through eBay auctions. Many people visit eBay on a daily basis looking for auctions for items that they may be interested in – simply because eBay auctions are so much fun!

However, before you start buying on eBay, there are some steps that you need to take. Here are five things you must do before buying on eBay.

1. You can’t buy anything without registering first.

Registration is free and only takes a few minutes. You will be asked for credit card information, and this is required before you will be able to bid on auctions. Your email address must be confirmed before your account will become active, so make sure that you use the correct email address.

You will be given the option to sign up for a Paypal account, if you don’t already have one, and you should strongly consider doing so. Signing up with Paypal is free, and many auctions will require you to have a Paypal account.

2. Once you have completed the registration process, you are ready to start bidding on auctions.

However, don’t jump in right away. Navigate around the site a bit, and get a feel for things first. Some unscrupulous sellers try to take advantage of new eBay users, and you must be wary of them.

Start by searching for the items that you are interested in. Using the category list, click on the categories that you feel that you are interested in, and start looking at the open auctions in those categories. You should find the items that you are looking for quite easily.

3. Once you have found items that you want to bid on add the auction to your favorites – but don’t place your bid just yet.

Instead, go find old auctions for similar items. See how much those items sold for so that you know how high to bid. Research the item as best as you can. Determine what the item would cost if it were brand new, and what you should bid now on the used item, in the condition that it is in.

4. Learn more about the seller.

Remember, not everyone is honest. Avoid buying from sellers who have low reputations. The reputation system at eBay is an important tool for buyers. This will enable you to determine whether or not you can trust the person that you are buying from.

Read their feedback page. Read the seller’s &About Me& page. Get to know who you are dealing with a little bit better by communicating with the seller about the auction.

5. Place your bid.

Once you know what item you want and how much you should bid on it, you are ready to place your bid.

There are two ways you can do this. Some sellers take bids on their auctions, with the item going to the highest bidder. Others choose to use the &Buy Now& feature, which means that they have a set reserve price that you must meet – but you are not in competition with other bidders. This is a typical option that sellers use when they have multiple identical items to sell, or when they sell brand new items on eBay using drop shippers.

If you are entering into an open live auction – where bids are placed and the highest bidder wins – you will need to watch the auction closely to ensure that you keep raising your bid to win the item. Just make sure that you don’t end up winning by paying way too much – unless it is a unique item that won’t be found elsewhere!

CopyRight Ian D. Major 2005

Purchasing ink cartridges for professional and consumer printers can be a costly endeavor. With many desktop printers costing less than the ink cartridges needed to run them, the search for affordable ink has never been more necessary than now. Unfortunately, many individuals and purchasing managers alike are unfamiliar with ways they can reduce their ink expenditures while getting the products they require. First and foremost, ink will almost always be less expensive when purchased from an online source.

As one might imagine, the cost of maintaining a storefront is transferred over to the consumer in every product sold. Online retailers don’t have storefront related expenses, and because they sell in the largest marketplace on earth, competition keeps prices at their lowest. Many erroneously associate online retailers with the inconvenience of waiting for orders to arrive as well as a limited selection. In truth, online retailers rarely suffer from the stock shortages that customers have become accustomed to with local retailers and most offer overnight or “next day” when requested. Additionally, online retailers& inkjet cartridge prices are well below those of printer and copier suppliers. Unless ink supply is included with a rental contract, companies can save substantially by purchasing their own. Another way to save on ink is to purchase remanufactured or aftermarket inkjet cartridges. Remanufactured cartridges are previously used products that are recycled through ink replacement.

They are tested for quality and provide the same lifespan as a new cartridge at a significant savings. Remanufactured cartridges are also better for the environment than new cartridges. Aftermarket ink cartridges are often much cheaper than original manufacturer products and are made to the same specifications, insuring consumers of the same compatibility and functionality found in their “name brand” counterparts. While most manufacturers will indicate that only certified replacement products are suitable for use in their printers, rarely is that actually the case. Of course, consumers should check to see if using compatible aftermarket cartridges will violate their warranty before purchasing. By finding the right retailer and using remanufactured or aftermarket ink cartridges, consumers can save hundreds or even thousands over the life of their printers.

Introduction
So you have completed your website, great! Now how are you going to attract visitors? If you do not let them know you’re there, your visitors will never find find you. How are you going to sell products when users don’t know that you exist? SEO will make your website noticeable on the internet, and this small guide will help you bring targeted visitors to your website.

Optimize your website
The most important part of your website is quality content. Search engines (such as google) will crawl your content and index it into a database. If your content does not match the product you are selling, you will not attract targeted visitors. It is therefore very important that you choose your (key)words very carefully. For instance, if you sell calculators on the internet, make sure you mention the words calculator, calc, math and more calculator related words on your website. However, be careful not to mention the words too often, or search engines might think your website is spam, which will result in a very low rank (search engine position) within the search results.

Linkbuilding
When more websites link to your site, the more attention you will get from search engines, which results in higher ranking. When you create and receive links from other websites to your website, make sure important keywords are used as anchor keywords in the hyperlink. If you sell calculators online, use a link such as; “buy calculator” instead of “click here”.

Target your audience
Leave your link on website where your potential customers meet, for instance forums or discussion boards related to your website. Do not spam your website as this will be noticed by crawlers and will eventually result in a blacklist entry.

Offline targeting
Be sure to market your website offline as well. Advertise in local newspapers, tell everyone about your website, etc.

Add a sitemap to your website When you want search engines to crawl your entire website, the best thing to do is adding a sitemap to your website.

Make sure searchbots can read your website
Searchbots can only read plain text.websites. No matter how beautiful your flash animation is, searchbots cannot read the content inside that animation. Therefore, try to avoid Flash animations on your website when there is content involved. Same story goes for JavaScript.

Do NOT use frames
Never use frames to design your website! Lots of search engines simply skip webpages with frames since they are a difficult to be seen apart from each other by visitors. For instance, if your framepage would consist of menu.html and content.html and your visitor would land on content.html, he would not have a menu to navigate through your website.

Stay away from bad neighbourhoods and don’t spam!
Do not be tempted into leaving your link on abandonned guestbooks, forums or spam your link on every website you can find. Do not exchange links with spammy websites (such as pharmacy websites) either. The risk exists that google will classify your website as a spamsite and will block your website from any search results.

OK, so you want to get into the business of online auctions. Maybe you want to sell, or maybe you are looking to buy. Either way, it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. Actually, it doesn’t have to cost you anything. That’s right! There are many free auction sites online to choose from.

You’ve heard of eBay (unless of course you’ve been living under a rock for the past several years), but there are alternative free auction sites online to choose from. For example, AuctionFire.com charges no listing fees and allows sellers to link to their auction page straight from their website for free. They have tons of item categories to choose from, whether you are a seller or a buyer, and claim to be open to new category suggestions. Similar in its item categories is Bid-Alot.com where buying and selling is free, though they require sellers who sign up for free account to provide credit card information. They also offer a how-to-trade guide for their beginners. Baymore.com offers pictures of their home page featured items as well as message boards for both buyers and sellers.

Other free auction sites include BuySellTrades.com which offers free listings, classifieds and trading, secure shopping and bidding, free store setup, community forums for buyers and sellers and even a chat community. BidMonkey.com also offers communities and even ChatMonkey IM. Users have the opportunity to earn Monkey Bucks and purchase items without paying anything but shipping. Also, sellers have the chance to be featured on the main page—a guarantee that everyone who logs in will see your name!

Whether you want to buy or sell, there are free auction sites out there for you with extra bonuses such as free store setups and community forums and chats to help you along your way.

E-commerce or electronic commerce can be defined as the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web. For proper implementation of e-commerce it is of immense importance to have an e-commerce site where one can get involve with the buying and selling of goods and services. To be successful, E-commerce site should contain a shopping cart system and a payment processing system.

Timely delivery is one aspect that requires careful attention. In fact, timely delivery is one of the three main dimensions of competitiveness, the others being quality and cost. Timely delivery is also dependent, like quality and cost, on productivity, managerial effectiveness and infrastructural support. Delays have been part and parcel of the economic system for the ages, hindering the progress of an organization. Delays in delivery occur due to a variety of reasons. Delays in manufacturing, shipping delays and delays in transporting the manufactured products to the ports upset the delivery schedules. E-commerce is the one way which can minimize these delays.

For e-commerce fulfillment, the use of high-class communication technologies is vital. If companies have to achieve global industrial competitiveness, in the first place it is essential for them to bridge the technology gap in industrial production. The companies should produce what the overseas markets need and produce them to their technological specifications and standards. Upgrading technology is also the durable route for price competitiveness and quality improvement. The companies have to do their bit by opting for the latest technology, adapting it, working out technology tie-ups and by committing higher investment for technology upgradation. Even in the post-liberalization era, technology upgradation has been the missing ingredient. But thanks to its all-time availability, global reach, and interaction and information delivery capabilities, the Internet is rapidly becoming a multi-billion dollar source of revenue for business across the globe.

It’s a fact. Clear, high-quality photos will greatly enhance your chances of selling your products on eBay. Here are 12 simple tips that will help you make the most of your eBay product photos.

1. You don’t need an expensive, high-resolution digital camera for your eBay photos. You just need a digital camera that will produce a 640×480 pixel image (which includes just about all digital cameras on the market.)

2. Before you buy a camera, handle it to feel how comfortable it is in your hands. Make sure the camera controls are logical, and that it’s easy to transfer photos from the camera to your computer. The camera should be able to focus within four inches or less.

3. When taking a photo for your eBay product, generally select the camera’s smallest photo size. If you are going to crop the image or upload it to eBay’s picture services, however, select at least a 1024 x 768 image size.

4. Disable your camera’s built-in flash when taking a photo. The built-in flash produces a glare on the photo and makes your products look two-dimensional.

5. Use your camera’s “Macro Focus” feature to take close-ups of your product. (“Macro Focus” is usually indicated by a tulip flower symbol.)

6. The key to effective product photography is lighting, and the key to effective lighting is control. You can control the strength, size, position, color and number of lights you use. And each of these controls changes how the subject looks. Review your camera’s manual to understand your camera’s “white balance” symbols ( i.e. a light bulb for indoor shots with incandescent lights, a sun symbol for outdoor photos, etc.) You’ll use the white balance control to get accurate colors. You can preset the white balance to match the type of light you’re using (daylight, shade, tungsten, fluorescent).

7. Use the “Exposure Control” (EV) to correct light and dark photos. A plus number lightens the image, a minus number darkens it.

8. Use a tripod when taking pictures of your product. The tripod stabilizes your camera and eliminates blurry photos.

9. Photograph your products at an angle.

10.Take more than one photo of each item. For example, if you are selling clothing, take one full-length photo; one photo of the tag showing size, fabric, content, brand; and one or more close-up photos showing the texture of fabric and any details or flaws.

11.Use photo-editing software to make final adjustments.

12.Host your pictures on your own website. You will save money and be able to use as many pictures as you need to adequately show eBay bidders your products. It’s simple, and yet 70 percent of eBay sellers don’t do it.

Adding high-quality product photos that enhance your eBay listings will greatly increase your sales. Try it today!

If you have an eBay store, then you can print off promotional flyers for it for free.

You might have seen ones that other sellers have sent you – they’re basically lists of items available in their eBay stores, usually bearing this default message: “Thank you for your purchase! Please visit my eBay Store for more great items and friendly, reliable customer service.” If you know what you’re doing, though, you can really make your flyer stand out from the crowd.

How Do I Do That?

Go to ‘My eBay’, then ‘Manage Your Store’. Now click ‘Promotions’, and you’ll see the ‘Store Promotional Flyer’ option there for you to use. A flyer will be automatically created using the settings and items from your eBay store, and you can customise it however you want. Be sure to add a border, to make your flyer more attractive visually.

Once you’ve created a flyer, you can print it as many times as you need to – it will be updated each time you print it to show your latest items, so you should only print what you need that day.

What Can I Do With the Flyers?

Well, there are all sorts of uses for promotional flyers.

While you could go and hand them out on the street, that probably wouldn’t be especially effective. Most of the people who walk past you and take the flyer will have no interest in your product, and it’ll just be a waste of paper, ink and time. No, as with all marketing, there are better ways to target your flyers.

Put them in envelopes: if you’ve been putting business cards or compliment slips in your envelopes, use the flyers instead. It’s like sending out a mini-catalogue to your buyers, and including the right items on it might help you make a few backend sales.

In your shop: If you have a real shop or business, then you can hand flyers out to your customers to let them know that you also sell things on eBay.

At a rival’s shop: This is a bit of guerrilla marketing, but maybe you’re into that. You can try handing your flyers out outside a shop that sells your items. Be aware that this might get the shop’s owners a little upset if they see you, however – you should only give flyers to people leaving the shop, not entering it.

Send them to businesses: Look up the addresses of businesses in the area that might need what you’re selling, and send them flyers in the post.

Flyers give you another advantage: If someone types your store’s address as it appears on the flyer and then buys something, then you’ll get the 75% final value fee credit for advertising, without even having to pay anything for advertising!

Users who are inexperienced on eBay, though, can create a few problems for you – they might not quite know what they’re doing, and that’s never good. In the next email, we’ll cover how to report and handle eBay transaction problems.

Internet marketing is fast becoming the advertising method of choice of small businesses. They get maximum exposure and internet traffic from prospective purchasers and customers. In fact, according to ISP Interland, small home businesses and medium scale companies (SMBs) are getting returns that are significantly higher because of their online marketing strategy. Also, more than half of business owners are saying that the increase in their monthly revenues are due to online purchases. Aside from this, most of their offline sales are due to the influence of their websites and online marketing.

However, it is surprising that not all are using search engine optimization when in recent years, search engines are essential tools for buyers. Instead of companies and businesses looking for clients online, it is the buyers that are looking for worthy purchases on the internet. Studies and surveys show that over two-thirds of SMBs’ online and offline sales are fueled by online researches. It is therefore crucial for SMBs’ products, services, and company names to appear in these searches. Visibility in search engines is part of a good and efficient internet marketing plan, but merely appearing on these searches. What these SMBs need are effective keywords that draw customers in and not just visitors.

Visibility in search engines is effectively linked to credibility and brand awareness. Sally Falkow, an online marketing specialist suggests that optimizing press releases gives SMBs excellent visibility and keep them on the consumers’ radar. Falkow provides another useful tip: giving these releases “news” appeal gives them credibility. Aside from these general tips from a specialist, there are other guides that SMBs rely on in internet marketing.

Researching and testing keywords is an effective way to find the most popular combinations. Sites like WordTracker and Overture help in selecting keywords. Internet marketing optimization benefits from the use of phrases rather than a single word as keyword. Jill Whalen, search consultant for High Rankings, says that more specific keywords draw and attract real customers and not just people who are browsing around. It is also important to mix general terms and specific words as keywords; this way, SMBs draw in all prospective clients. It is also a good idea to include the company name and title tags as part of the keywords. The use of jargon is also a good idea especially if the SMBs’ products are industry-specific. Linking keyworded articles to other articles or sites is also an effective strategy. Lastly, it is vital that SMBs be honest about the service and product that they offer to avoid disappointed buyers. It is one thing to advertise a product and a completely different thing to exaggerate about its features.

When you own a web business you have to be aware that a strong web presence and high brand respect means higher sales and increased profits. But if your website ranks beyond the top twenty positions in the search engine listings you have a small hope of getting people to check out your site. No matter how good your products are and how exciting and stunning your pages are, you won’t still be able to get the required traffic.

There are essentially three ways for a customer to get to your site. First is for the customer to type your website address. The only problem with this is that people have to actually know your web address in order to use it. The second way is for people to link to your site from other website. Again, the problem with this is that the other sites must grant you permission to post a link on their site. The third method is for a customer to find your site through a search engine. And this is how you plunge into the world of search engine optimization.

Consider this situation: if you get a visitor to your site from a search engine, chances are the person is interested in your products. Although there are instances that some high school kid happen to stumble on your site because he was writing an essay on candle making. Just the same there is a possibility that he also wants to buy candles from you. You just simply have to convert this visit into a sale.

When it comes to online marketing, search engine optimization is the key to obtaining visitors at very little cost. To increase your website’s traffic, it should rank within the top positions in the results of the major search engines. You also have to make sure that your site keeps its ranking over along period of time.

However, search engines consider dozens of aspects to rank sites. For instance, Google says they have more than a hundred standards in their ranking system. Basically, the search engine has to be convinced that your site contains the information that the browser is looking for. For this purpose you need a lot of keyword rich content. If you have lots of articles with information on candles but you have not used the keyword candles often enough, you may lose the battle. Apart from keywords, you can boost your search engine rankings by using links on your site. This convinces the search engine that yours is an important site therefore more likely to have useful information.

Search engine optimization is, thus, one of the important marketing tools available today. So what are you waiting for? Work on those rankings to get the customer that you need. Remember that for every second that you waste you could be losing out on those all-important visitors that could translate into customers for your business.

Buying in any auction either on or offline can be an exciting experience. You see an item that you are interested in and you make a bid. But then someone else bids and you are no longer the high bid. Well, your bid was a bit low anyway so you might as well raise it a little and get control because there are only a few minutes to the end of the auction.

And so up and up go the bids until the end of the auction arrives. One of two things will have happened, you will either have won the item and paid way over the odds or you will breath a sigh of relief as someone else has the winning bid.

As sellers we love two or three people to be interested in our item and bid against each other. That is how items reach two or three times the amount we expected but as a buyer it can leave us a bit flat and not a little poorer.

There is absolutely no reason why this should happen to you. Bidding in the last few minutes of an auction can become frenzied and it is not the place for value for money seekers like us to be. And the good news is that we do not have to be.

These days I make all my bids by Proxy. It is very simple and straightforward and you will often pick up a bargain. What you do is decide what is the maximum price you are prepared to pay for any item. And this is a decision you make ideally a few hours before the end of the auction although you can bid as soon as the item is listed if you wish. Personally I do not like to attract too much attention to an auction by bidding early if I can avoid it. But sometimes it can be necessary if I am going to be away from a computer for a while.

Once you have decided on the amount you are prepared to pay enter that as your bid.

Now do not worry all that will happen is that your bid will be recorded at the level of the next bid increment. For example if the current bid was 99c and you were prepared to pay £3 the actual bid would be for just $1.04 a 5c increase on the previous bid. If someone else then bid yours would increase until someone bids more than your maximum bid.

In my experience I find that by using proxy bids I get about 50% of the items I bid on and often for much less than my maximum amount. One useful tip that I can give you is to never make your maximum bid a round number. For instance if you think $10 is about right bid $10.11 or even $10.51 because a lot of people will quit bidding when the item reaches a significant amount such as $10, $50 or $100 and those few extra can swing the auction in your favour.

Once you have placed your proxy bid you can just forget about it until the auction is over and then just check your e-mail for the congratulations or “the you have been outbid” message. Either way you can be sure that you have not paid over the odds for an eBay purchase.

Trying to fight Google or be cleverer somehow is pointless, destructive and the wrong attitude.

Learn to LOVE Google and work WITH IT instead – and it will send you streams upon streams of people. It’s as easy as pie if you follow these straightforward instructions.

1. Google Love …

Google and all its programming is not some form of enemy – unless you are a piece of web scum, that is.

Google is based on the idea that it should help people FIND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR.

That’s all.

Sit with the statement above. Meditate upon it if necessary. Use EFT.

But UNDERSTAND that a pointless site that has no unique content will NEVER get ANYWHERE with Googly or any other outfit that is using their techniques and methods.

You can buy books and ebooks until your wallet bleeds on “how to trick Google” this and that – just forget it.

Unless you have SOME THING that SOME PEOPLE will HONESTLY WANT and be grateful for when they find it, there is no hope and there is no point in reading any further.

Also, trying to fight Google or be cleverer somehow is pointless, destructive and the wrong attitude.

Learn to LOVE Google and work WITH IT.

If you have the contents, and you follow the most simplest common spider robot courtesy protocols, then it will come and it will index you.

It will be that mystical bridge between YOUR (customers, people, communities, friends) and your site.

That’s what it does, that’s what it is, that’s it’s nature and if you know that, then all is well.

You will get good results following the rest of this.

2. Dressing For Google …

So now, let’s have a DECENT website with DECENT content.

A decent website means:

- All the pages and directories have links that work properly and allow Google to slide with immense ease from one place to the other, without ever hitting an annoying dead end;

- All the pages are cleaned up so that you have the absolute MINIMUM of html instructions and nothing that doesn’t need to be there, such as vast and pointless java scripts or the truly appalling “mso” instructions;

- All the pages have the right meta tags which ACCURATELY REFLECT what’s on them, and including title, content, description, keywords at the very minimum;

- All your pages have proper headings and descriptions and content WHICH MATCHES your meta tags to a T;

- All your images are title and alt tagged CORRECTLY and resident on your own site.

Decent content means:

- Whatever you’ve got, it is USEFUL. If it is UNIQUE, so much the better, and that’s not hard. All you need to is to be yourself and use your own words, even if you are affiliate – write your own reviews, put your own dog’s picture on it, be unique, be YOURSELF.

- Whatever you’ve got, I’m sure there’s some people who want to look at it, read it, do something with it. There’s billions of people out there. Just make sure YOU KNOW WHO YOUR PEOPLE ARE and write to THEM.

- Decent content also means that what you’ve got is presented so that both Google and a human being get it what that is all about.

When your website is up and running, test, test and test again. Try every single hyperlink on your own computer, on someone else’s and on all manner of different browsers.

Only when you are happy that it all works as it should, we go to Step 3.

3. Let Google SEE You

You need a minimum of 35 decent links going to your site for Google to take any notice of you and start paying attention.

Please be aware that “one link” is just that – http://www.snark.net is NOT the same as http://www.snark.net, which is not the same as http://snark.net, nor even remotely similar to any variation including http://snark.net/index.php

All, each and every ONE is viewed as a single separate link – when you need 35 ALL GOING TO ONE SINGLE ADDRESS to do the magic.

So now, to the “decent links” part.

A site that isn’t indexed much by Google or doesn’t turn up until page 1,993,990 on a Google search for its kind is WORTHLESS to you.

Find HIGH RANKED directory listings for your site and list your site THERE. This goes for any of the many variations on getting a link from another site, be it a guestbook signed or an article placed. Don’t waste your time with anything that itself doesn’t turn up on Google’s own top ten.

Now, you’ve got a date with Google.

What we need to do next is to BUILD A RELATIONSHIP – prove our value and worth over time, in other words.

That’s the next of our Google top tips – seniority and reliability.

4. Be THERE When Google Calls!

Make sure you’ve got a decent ISP with 99% uptime or better – that’s of course elementary.

Don’t ever take your site down for whatever reason and make any changes gradually.

Most importantly, get the best tracking software you can afford and find out who is already coming, and what they are coming for.

That’s the key to long term success – to find what you’re doing well and then expanding on it. For example, if one person came from Google (or any other search engine) for the term “snark”, then build on that. Write more articles about snarks, what to do with them and without them, how to avoid them, collect snark images – in other words, become the first port of call for any snark enquiry.

Build on your speciality some more with a web directory, guest articles, reviews and then we’re more than 3/4 the way to a real web presence and Google responding to changes in your site near instantly, which is what we want.

5. Keep Improving ALL THE TIME.

The final success tip is to keep improving ALL THE TIME.

Pull up the html or php you wrote a year ago – I bet you can do better now.

Review your meta tags and your site copy and improve on both.

Name your pages, images and directories better. Improve the content, structure, navigation of your site.

Keep at it with directory listings and submissions – directories come and go, you need to be always there with the “state of the art”.

Keep doing useful link exchanges with matching high ranked sites too and keep adding VALUE and UNIQUE CONTENT to your clean and well presented pages.

That’s the most important thing of all – to keep at it with continuous improvement.

Follow these steps EXACTLY with a well named new site with decent content – and you WILL see immediate improvement in your Google rankings.

Good Luck and Good Spirits always,

Silvia

Affiliate marketing programs have sky-rocketed in popularity in the past few years. As one of the fastest and easiest ways to start an online home business people are jumping on this wave by the millions. Affiliate programs offer merchants the opportunity to employ vast armies of sales people who get paid for the results they achieve.

The rewards for affiliates can be very good, and the skilled affiliate marketer can earn many thousands of dollars per month. This win-win situation has led to an explosion in the number of affiliate programs that are available to affiliate marketers.

With this growth of affiliate opportunities have come many questions, such as: how do you go about choosing the right affiliate program for you? What qualities should you look for in a program and which gives you a good chance of making a sustainable income? Below are some tips that will help you to evaluate affiliate programs, and help you to avoid wasting time and money.

What Commissions Does the Program Pay?

It is very important that you know how much you can expect to earn from a sale. There is no point in spending time and money promoting a product that pays very small commissions. You could end up spending more on marketing than you make on sales. It is probably best to stick with marketing products with a high commission value, unless you have found a niche market where you can sell vast quantities of product, and make substantial commissions on your volume of sales.

How Much Traffic is their Website Getting?

Try to discover the amount of traffic the affiliate owner’s website is already receiving. Alexa.com is a very useful tool for doing this research. If the website is ranked in the top 100,000, the merchant is getting a good volume of traffic, so it’s possible that there may already be too many affiliates. If it is ranked below 500,000 it may be no good, or it could be a golden opportunity to make some real money by becoming one of the first affiliates!

Always research a merchant’s product if their website has a low traffic ranking. It may be a good idea to buy the product yourself if you can afford it. Otherwise you could do a search to find out if there are any negative reviews about it on the internet. Be careful who you listen to though because many people are in the habit of bashing affiliate programs with nothing to really support their comments. If you find a large amount of negative reviews with little positive ones then it would probably be a good idea to stay away from that affiliate program.

How Often Are Affiliate Commissions Paid?

Some affiliate programs pay commissions every week; some once a month, others only pay every quarter. It is important that you know how often you can expect a pay check if you are going to have financial control over your business. Do you have the financial resources to continue to market a product if you have to wait a long time before you get paid? It would also be wise to find out the minimum commission that you have to earn before you get paid.

Does The Affiliate Program Use Tracking Cookies?

Many customers do not buy on their first visit to a merchant’s website. It is important therefore that the merchant uses cookies for their affiliate program, so that you get credit if the customer returns and buys at a later date. Check out how long the cookies last. The longer the cookies lasts; the better the chances of you getting paid!

Does the Affiliate Program Pay on Subsequent Sales?

Some programs will only pay commission on sales that come through customers visiting their site via a direct link from your site. They pay you nothing for any subsequent purchases that the customer makes if they visit the merchants site directly. It is important that you get paid no matter what route the customer returns by if you are to build a sustainable affiliate business.

What Marketing Resources Does the Affiliate Program Offer?

Look at the type and quality of the marketing resources that they provide. Do they provide articles, advertisements, or other content that you can use to put on your site? Do they provide free guides, special offers, free viral e-books, or product samples that you can send to your list? If the marketing material they provide is good then it is likely that the business will provide good support for their affiliates.

Finding the right affiliate program for you can be tough to do. The best advice is to do your own research, follow the advice above, and listen to your instincts. Use the above questions as an aid to finding an affiliate program that enables you to reach your financial goals. You never know… You might just strike affiliate marketing gold!

Listing tools automate the process of adding listings to eBay, to stop you having to go through the ‘Sell Your Item’ process every time. There is a surprising amount of choice out there when it comes to eBay listing tools, to the point where you might not know what to choose. Here’s an overview of what’s useful and what’s not.

Turbo Lister.

Turbo Lister is a free download from eBay, and allows you to sell on eBay without ever having to actually visit the site. You can write descriptions, save them and list them over and over again – if you want to, you can even do most of your eBay work offline, and just go online for a few seconds to upload it.

You can list in bulk and schedule your listings to start any time. Since this is eBay’s officially supported program, you’re guaranteed that upgrades to eBay’s site will never break it and leave you out in the cold. Personally, though, I find the design quite bad – it’s not really that much easier than just going through eBay directly.

Blackthorne.

Also from eBay, this is what used to be called the ‘Seller’s Assistant’. It’s a downloadable program, but it’s more powerful than Turbo Lister is. It lets you do everything in bulk: listing, re-listing, and even feedback. You can export your sales data to an accounting program, and track your auctions while they’re still going on. You only have to enter things like payment choices and shipping details once, and they’re saved forever.

So where’s the disadvantage? It costs $9.99 per month, or $24.99 for the pro version, which also lets you print shipping labels in bulk and manage an inventory.

Andale Lister.

If you want to try something that’s not been made by eBay, Andale’s lister is still web-based, but aims to streamline the process.

You can create ‘profiles’ with different selections for your auctions. For example, you could create a ‘Normal’ profile that doesn’t include any of the listing upgrades, a ‘Promote’ profile that includes Bold and Highlight, and a ‘Super Promote’ profile that buys Bold, Highlight and Featured Plus. This makes it easier to choose the set of options you want for each item.

It’s all about saving things you’ve done. Each time you upload a picture, it gets added to a ‘Picture Library’ for you to use again, and you can store an inventory and choose from it to create a listing. You also get nicer-looking templates than eBay provide.

Of course, if eBay had their act together then this is what their own process would be like – but they’re happy for third-parties to make money doing the work instead of upgrading their own site. Andale Lister can cost anywhere between 20c and 4c per listing, as you get discounts for volume.

Now that you’re listing in bulk, you can spend more time trying to attract people to come and bid on your auctions. But how should you be doing your marketing? In the next email, we’ll go through some of the options available to you.

As a new age of web marketers filter through the trials and tribulations of success online, it brings us to an important question, who do I believe? If you’ve paid attention as to how to optimize your site for online performance, you’ll eventually come across what we call, bad SEO practices.

In the event that you are looking into hiring an SEO company, you are left with many decisions and concerns. I don’t blame you for worrying. Many of the so called “SEO” companies are just out to get your money. Please don’t take this article as an attack against SEO consultants but take it as a warning to do your due-diligence and investigate each company you contact.

Here is a small check list to ask:

- Could you show me some of your clients placements?
- What did you have to do to get them there?
- Could you give me something to read about your methods?
- Do you guarantee your placements? (oh oh look out)

If the response comes back something like this:

We don’t disclose our secrets or, we cloned their information and placed it on our site to get a good ranking right away or, we simply went out to got 1000’s of incoming links for them. Here’s the kicker, stay away from this; we guarantee you top placements and/or placements on the 1st page etc.

These are considered tell tale signs that the SEO Company you contacted is just in it for the money and they don’t truly care about your business in the future. All these practices in question may sometimes work but are breaking ethical search engine optimization rules.

Here is what an “unethical SEO “would sound like:
(created for the purposes of this illustration).

1) “we don’t disclose our secrets” – There are no secrets to disclose
2) “We cloned their information” – We will get better results than you will
3) “We went out and got 1000’s of links” – Good thing they weren’t related to anything you do because we would actually have to spend a lot of time targeting your market instead of bringing in false traffic.
4) “We guarantee everything” – There is no such thing on the internet.

Here is what an “ethical SEO” would sound like:
(created for the purposes of this illustration).

What we plan to do is to strategically target your market by optimizing your site internally to target the right key words that your potential buyers are searching for online. Also, we would like to strategically place your website link on other related websites to gain more exposure to your business with the right people in mind.”

We don’t care if other people are “cloning”,”hiding their text”,”linking to everyone in the world”, we are here to build the right foundation, to make sure that your tree will grow for years to come.”

Although we cannot guarantee anything in this business, our track record is strong and our clients are truly happy with their results, here are some references.”

There is a big difference in good practices and bad ones. You can spot them right away as soon as they divert your questions elsewhere. Good SEO companies aren’t afraid to answer your questions, in fact, we love to talk about search marketing and positioning and we have the proof to back up our statements.

Some would say SEO Companies are like “lawyers”, they will do whatever it takes to win the battle but many of us SEO’s would strongly disagree. Granted, in every working field in the world, there are bad apples out there. Unfortunately concerning web marketing, we see them world wide but our industry is about helping people grow their business. We genuinely care about your success. The more successful you are, the more success we will attract for our own business.

This information can also be used for everyone trying to perform their own SEO plans. Don’t believe every practice you hear out there, in fact, try asking the professionals at “www.webproworld.com” one of the internet’s most resourceful informational forums to date. Simply ask one of the professionals about the ethical/unethical methods of promoting your business, and you will get the answer you were looking for.

I hope this information helps your journey!

Do you want to make money through the Internet but you don’t have enough experience or capital to start your own online business? You don’t have to worry, for a lot of online marketing options exist for you to start with. One of these options, and shall I say the best, is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing provides first time online marketers like you the chance to market something online even without having your own product to sell. All you have to do is to sign up with an affiliate marketing program, which is usually owned by an online merchant or retailer, and start picking the products you want to promote. As an affiliate, you are paid by the merchant for your services on a commission basis, that is whenever you have directed a visitor to the merchant’s site and the visitor actually buys something.

Becoming an affiliate in an affiliate marketing program is often quick and easy, and for most affiliate programs, signing up is also free. But despite these and all the benefits being promised by affiliate programs, many people are still hesitant to get into affiliate marketing. One of the reasons why a lot of people remain hesitant is the lack of a website to start marketing his affiliate products with. This now leads us to the question of whether a website is required or necessary in affiliate marketing or not.

Many people say that one can do affiliate marketing even without a website to start with. Actually, one can really start promoting and marketing his affiliate products even without a website; and there exist a lot of ways on how this can be done. In fact, many affiliate marketing strategies that leads to success can exist without actually needing a website. Among these strategies are email marketing, offline promotions, writing e-books, writing ezines and engaging in online discussions like forums, chats, message boards and others.

*Email Marketing

Email marketing, or maintaining email lists, is actually the most popular affiliate marketing strategy that doesn’t require the affiliate to maintain a website. In this affiliate marketing strategy, what you basically do is maintain a list of the email ads of your prospective customers and provide them with articles that are relevant with the affiliate products and programs you are promoting. Articles that you provide your contacts with need not always be promotional, for many individuals find such types of email annoying. Rather, it would be better if you provide them with something informative and just add small text ads that link to your merchant’s site.

*Offline Promotion

There are many ways on how you can promote your affiliate products offline. Among the common medium used for such promotions are classified ads, brochures and flyers. Classified ads would generally work better compared to the other two because classified ads in periodicals often get a wider audience.

*Writing Free e-books

If you have a knack in writing, writing an e-book can be the best way for you to promote your affiliate products in the absence of an actual website. Just like in emails and newsletters, your readers would better appreciate your e-book if it is not too promotional but rather informative. Be sure, however, to make the contents of your e-books relative to the actual affiliate products you are promoting. And just like in email marketing, you can just place text ads or banners somewhere near the end of your e-book that links to the merchant’s site.

*Writing Free Ezines

Ezines are publications or articles that aim to inform individuals about a particular topic. If you don’t have a website and yet want to be an affiliate, you can well use ezines to promote your affiliate products or to insert links to your merchant’s site. If you have a website, your ezine article may actually work well as content for your site. But since you have no website, you can just submit your free ezine articles to various websites that hosts ezines, like goarticles.com, ezinearticles.com and others.

*Online discussions (Forums, Chats, Message Boards, etc.)

With or without a website, you just can’t ignore online discussions because they are great venues for marketing your affiliate products. In chats, forums, message boards and discussion boards with topics related to your products, you can easily find people who may be interested with the products you are promoting.

With all these strategies, it may appear that one really doesn’t need to have a website to start marketing his affiliate products and promoting his affiliate programs. Well, starting in an affiliate program without a website may be easy, but getting successful in affiliate marketing without a website is another thing. While one can actually gain enormous success in affiliate marketing even without a website, it is a rare instance that “newbies” like you can reach the same levels of success.

Having a website is not really a pre-requisite in entering into an affiliate program, unless otherwise the program owner would require you to have one. But while this is so, I would still recommend that you have for yourself a website, if not now, then maybe at a later time. Having a website creates a lot of advantages in affiliate marketing. For one, it provides you a place where you can creatively promote not only one of your affiliate products but all of your affiliate products. With a website, you can also advertise your affiliate products to a wider market.

Again, having a website is not a requirement in affiliate marketing. But with the advantages that a website can provide, I’d rather have one for myself and make affiliate marketing a lot easier for me.

To get your own money-making website set up free visit: http://www.home-industry.com/pips.html

One of your most important marketing assets is your Keyword List. But are you giving your Keyword List the attention it deserves? Is your Keyword List getting a little shaggy around the edges? Are your keywords becoming old and out of date? Is your Keyword List not behaving at its best, possibly due to neglect?

To properly care for your Keyword List you need to understand its different needs and functions. We can divide the list into several broad categories.

1) Master Keyword List – this list has all the keywords that you can come up with for your particular need. All other lists are taken from this Master List.

2) Pay-Per-Click List – this is a subset of the Master List and will vary depending on how you are using PPC and which search engines you are buying positions in.

3) Tag List – this subset of the Master List helps you fill in those Meta Tag fields. Although many search engines are not currently paying much attention to Meta Tags, that could change at any time and the search engines will not let us know if or when they begin watching Meta Tags again. So the safe bet is to still keep these tags properly populated.

4) Web Site List – this is another subset of the Master List and is more targeted than the PPC list. This list also helps you write powerful content on your site. And don’t forget to refer to this list when setting up the Alt tags for your images (you are using Alt tags aren’t you?).

5) Email List – Are you using keywords in your email? You should be. Keywords are not only used to help people find your site in search engines, but they are words people are actively searching for. Your marketing should be addressing their needs, and your keyword list shows you what they are looking for. Just like creating copy on a web page, use the keyword list to target your email campaigns as well.

So how do you go about creating the Master Keyword list? You first have to decide what you need from your keywords. Most likely you will have a product or service that will dictate the broad category for the list. As an example I will use Nikon Camera as my starting point. Maybe I have a site that specializes in information about Nikons, or I have a store that sells Nikon Cameras, or maybe I sell software that would complement a Nikon Camera. These questions and more will begin to focus your keyword search.

Start by building a basic list using this approach, you don’t need to capitalize, leave everything lowercase.

nikon, nikon camera, nikon information, nikon sales, nikon software

Put down the basic keywords that spring into your head when thinking about your subject. This does not need to be an exhaustive list, just a starting point.

We now need to expand on this list by using tools freely available on the internet. My personal favorite is on Overture.com in their Resource Center. They have a valuable little tool called the Keyword Selector Tool. This tool will give you a list of keyword searches on Overture over a one month period. Simply type in your keyword and hit the button. You will get a list of keywords including the keyword you typed in and the number of searches performed on the keyword.

A search for “Nikon” came back with 100 keyword possibilities. Depending on your original keyword search you may have to clean this list up a bit before using it. For instance one of the keywords was “Nikon rifle scopes”, not what I need so I will delete that one. I usually copy the information from this web page and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet where I can manipulate it as I like. Each month you may get a different set of keywords on Overture, so don’t just do this one time and forget it. Keep on checking back to add more keywords to your list.

Another valuable tool is over on Google. (https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox)
You can also find this tool in the Tools section of Google Adwords. This is used like the Overture tool, simply type in your keyword and click on Get More Keywords. This search gave me 225 possible keywords, many of which I will clean out. A nice feature of the Adwords tool is that it allows you to download the list as a CSV file for use in Excel or another program.

There are many other sources for keyword lists. A good place to start is on Search Engine Watch at http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041

Don’t forget specialized sites like eBay. They have a banner ad program named eBay Keywords where you can find suggestions for keywords to use with banner ads on eBay. http://ebay.admarketplace.net

And finally pay attention to the log files for your web site. You will have a list of searches people used to find your site. This is a very targeted list of keywords that were actually successful in driving traffic to your site.

Now that you have a huge list of keywords you are ready to create your Master Keyword List. Place all these keywords into a spreadsheet and clean out the inappropriate keywords (like “Nikon Binoculars”). Then arrange in order from most relevant to least relevant.

You need to weed this Master List down for your PPC campaign. You may find that the keywords near the top of your list are the most expensive and that the ones in the middle may have a better cost to sales ratio. But the more keywords you can use on PPC, the broader your exposure.

The top 25 should work well for your Meta Tag list. Depending on your needs you may need to remove duplicate words. Try to limit any individual word to 5 uses or less (example: don’t use “nikon” more than 5 times).

The top 10 keywords are your sales words for your web site and email campaigns since these are the most tightly focused keywords in the list.

Don’t forget that the needs of your list will be changing as the market place shifts. Every month or so do a new search for keywords to keep your keyword list up to date. Trim out the words that are either no longer appropriate or effective. Be sure to keep an eye on your log files. Keep your sub-lists current. And give your Keyword List the care and attention it needs to live a long and active life.

And finally, if only 4 people purchase some training off of my site due to the keywords in this article I can finally get that Nikon Camera that I have been wanting.

There are steps you can take to make sure that you are getting a great deal on the items you obtain through eBay. These same steps will also help to shield you against fraud.

Start with the auction in question. Make sure that you read every word of the description and the auction details.

Pay special attention to what the description and auction details do not say. For example, is a guarantee mentioned? Is the item new? Is it authentic? Is there evidence of authenticity? Look for auctions that provide the right information, and just keep away from those that do not.

Who will pay the shipping and handling costs? Often, the buyer pays these costs, but sometimes, the seller tries to charge more than the actual shipping and handling costs are. Be careful of high shipping costs, especially for items that will be auctioned off at a very low price. Note when the item is supposed to ship after the bidding has ended.

Don’t make the mistake of bidding on an item merely because it is a &good deal.& It is only a good deal for you if the item is something that you really want or need. A lot of people simply bid for the sake of bidding – or winning – without having any real need for the item in question. Before bidding on items that you do want or need, it’s best to check prices around the Internet and the prices available from offline sources as well.

Learn more about the seller. What is their rating? Read their feedback page. Not learning more about the seller can be very costly. Sometimes scammers make their auctions sound like really great deals. Be cautious of prices that seem to be extremely low.

So you’ve done everything you can to keep your buyers happy – but still someone’s left you negative feedback! You don’t think it’s fair, either because you fixed the buyer’s problem, or they never gave you a fair chance to fix it. What can you do?

Communicate.

Tell the buyer that you don’t think that feedback was fair, and give them a list of the things you’ll do in exchange for them withdrawing it. You can offer refunds, replacements, or even to ‘compensate them for their time’ (that means bribe them), depending on how desperate you are. If they agree, you can go through the mutual withdrawal process detailed below.

Respond.

Leave a comment under the negative feedback explaining what happened – this at least minimises the damage it will do to your reputation if anyone looks at it. Remember that you can more-or-less write whatever you want, as there is no facility for the buyer to respond to your response – and anything you write will show up on their ‘Feedback Left for Others’ page! If you’re a little devious, you can make them look very bad.

Retaliate.

However much you’re not supposed to do it, you really shouldn’t let a buyer leave you negative feedback without leaving them a negative in return. Be polite and factual, saying something like “buyer did not give me a fair opportunity to fix their complaint” (note that this is one of the reasons why you should always leave feedback second, or not at all). This might not be the ‘nicest’ way to do business on eBay, but it’s the only realistic way to protect your flawless reputation.

Don’t be worried: retaliatory feedback is not against eBay’s rules, however much it should be. Anyway, you’re not just doing this for revenge – it’s essential for the next step.

Try for a Mutual Withdrawal.

Since the buyer probably won’t want a negative response or feedback comment on their record, you can do a simple “I’ll take away my negative if you take away yours” deal. This is called mutual feedback withdrawal, and the process can be started at this page: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MFWRequest.

This will cause eBay’s system to send an email to your buyer, asking them if they agree to withdraw their feedback in exchange for you withdrawing yours. You should get them to agree before you press the button, though, because you can only use it once per transaction.

Use Dispute Resolution.

You and the buyer can take your feedback dispute to SquareTrade, where you can both give your side and they will cancel feedback that they feel is unfair – they are far more responsive than eBay. Be aware that this costs about $20, but it has the advantage that if the buyer doesn’t respond to the process then their feedback will be removed automatically.

Of course, at some point you might find yourself with an even worse buyer than one that just leaves negative feedback – they might refuse to pay, or harass your other buyers. Our next email will tell you how to get in touch with eBay’s ‘Safe Harbor’ team, and what they can do for you.

Online trading flourished during the dot-com boom and remains a popular way for individual investors to manage their portfolios. Long gone are the days when one needed to call a stockbroker to trade stock and the high fees associated with such one-on-one transactions.

Traditional online trading is conducted using a Web browser and an online broker. To place an order, a client logs on to a broker&s Web site and the broker submits it to the market.

But even this method may result in a slower execution of the order. New advances in technology have made the process faster and more efficient.

Direct Access Trading, also known as DAT, has quickly become the choice for both casual and serious investors. One company helping individuals harness the power of this technology is RushTrade.

Using special software, customers place orders to buy and sell securities that are routed to the market using direct access technology. The software analyzes which route will allow for the best execution.

Direct Access Trading can shave anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes off transaction times. By executing orders quicker, investors get the best price available without having to wait for a middleman to execute the order. Faster transaction speed is not the only benefit of Direct Access Trading over traditional online trading; lower-cost bulk transactions are another plus.

Traders find such speed and cost-effectiveness attractive, regardless of whether they trade a few times per quarter or many times a day. Companies like RushTrade have structured commission schedules that fit any type of investor.

Now that blogging has become so popular among everyone from the novice writer to the most experienced journalist, businesses are starting to take notice. A well-written and frequently updated blog can help market almost any type of business. Blogging can help target readers who are interested in a company’s product or service and businesses can keep track of what their readers are looking for through blogging. In addition, blogging can help link together companies that compliment each other very easily.

There is a lot of talk about blogging. Some feel that blogging is just a passing fad, but others feel it is just the beginning. Some business analysts feel that blogging does not significantly help a business market the company. Many businesses feel that this is not so. Blogging can be a beneficial way to mark a business, build an audience and help link in other companies together.

Blogging can help almost any business expose their readers to their services and products. Sometimes with new products, a blog can create interest in something new. Blogging is helpful because it can talk in depth about the product, and it can also give step-by-step instructions on how a certain product can be used. A reader, who is interested in the product after reading about it on a blog, will be more inclined to research similar products on the Internet. This can lead to a more informed consumer and can save a consumer time when shopping or researching a new product. In turn, a company may save time because customers who have read the blog are already informed about the product. These customers can also read reviews on these products and services, which can be helpful in the buying process.

Another great thing about companies using a blog for their products and services is that a blog enables the company and the customer to communicate effectively. A customer can read the blog and comment on it right away. This provides good feedback to the company and they can know what the customers want. Usually blogs will provide places for readers to leave their comments or send emails to the writer. This is a good marketing tool for businesses. People enjoy communicating about products and services that they have had good or bad experiences with and blogging provided the opportunity to do so.

Blogs can also help market a business because it will be included in search engines. When people enter certain keywords, blogs that contain those words will show up. When blogs are updated frequently, search engines can provide your company with a lot of hits. This can lead to many people looking at the company’s blog who might not otherwise have done so.

When companies use blogs, it also has the ability to create a sensation around a product and influence public opinion. This is an excellent tool for companies to use. Because of the huge popularity of blogging, this can be a more effective tool than some forms of advertising. Readers are more likely to share interesting blogs with their friends and this can help companies get the word out about their product.

Another way blogging can help market a business is that blogs often help a company position itself as a leader in a certain field. This means that those who blog can show their expertise about certain subjects and then updates this information on a regular basis. Blogging can help generate leads and send a positive message about your company without spending a lot of money for advertising. Readers can look at these blogs and know that they are dealing with a quality company.

Companies also use blogs to help network with other companies that compliment their business. This is beneficial because they can easily share their links and readers will see all of the blogs that relate to what they are searching for on the Internet. Link swapping is often used in blogging, especially with businesses.

Blogging is proving to be a beneficial marketing tool for businesses all over the world. While it’s a fairly new way for companies and customers to communicate with each other, blogging provides an immediate and unique form of advertising for the company. Customers are able to read and research products and services through blogging and companies can better understand what their customers want.

Do you have to sacrifice all of the creative and artistic elements of your web site to rank in the search engines? Later in this article I’ll show you a real case scenario and the design and SEO approach used.

Thanks to the birth of professional search engine marketers the top ranks are saturated with the pages of companies that can pay for such insight. That said, it’s certainly possible to employ high ranking tactics in your own website. Actually, the most basic tactics can move you up from an 800 position to a 300. However, it’s the top of the scale where efforts seem almost inversely exponential or logarithmic, you put a ton in to see a tiny change in rank.

How do you meld the ambitious overhauls required to attain significant ranking and NOT compromise the design of your site?

Design Can’t Be Ignored

If you have an existing site, you’ve probably tied it into your existing promotional content. Even if you’ve allowed your website to cater to the more free form of the net, it should still be designed as a recognizable extension of your business.

The reasons for doing so are valid, and can’t simply be ignored for the sake of achieving a first age position, can they? If your research into search optimization leaves you shuffling around thoughts of content, keyword saturated copy and varying link text, you are correctly understanding some of the basic pillars of search engine optimization.

And, you aren’t alone if you have this disheartening thought—If I do all this SEO stuff and reach number one across the board, who would stay at my site because it’s so stale and boring I’m even embarrassed to send people there!

There are two ways to successfully combine design and SEO. The first is to be a blue chip and/or Fortune 500 company with multi million dollar advertising and branding budgets to deliver your website address via television, radio, billboards, PR parties and giveaways with your logo.

Since chances are that’s not you, and certainly not me, lets look at the second option. It begins with some research into your market, some thoughtful and creative planning, and a designer who is a search engine optimizer, and understands at least basic CSS and HTML programming techniques. Or a combination of people with these skills that can work very well together.

Design is for brochures, instant results are for the web

That’s not the whole truth, but it will help compare and contrast design and SEO. In reality, SEO needs the quantity and detail of supporting text that a brochure has, but good web design has to catch a viewer’s attention in 5 seconds. It’s pretty difficult to read and absorb the content of an entire brochure in less than 5 seconds.

Search engines need rich, related, appropriate, changing and poignant content. And for them to rank you, all of that must be on your pages. But if it’s not well organized and broken down into bite size chunks, no one is going to bother learning about what you’re offering.

Construction 101- Attractive Design and SEO

Sadly, it’s very difficult to optimize a site without completely overhauling it. You’ll soon understand why. Design and SEO must be strongly rooted into every aspect of each other, possessing a true, symbiotic relationship. Lets look at a simplified example of this. Lets say you are optimizing a page for the keyword phrase, “pumpkin bread recipe.”

From a design standpoint “Pumpkin Bread Recipe” would be the heading for the page, in a nice, readable font with the words perhaps an orange-brown color. And lets add a fine, green rule around it.

There are many ways to create that simple, colored heading. However, there is only one way that is best for both design and SEO. That is to use Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS. In addition, that line of code containing “Pumpkin Bread Recipe” needs to be as close to the top of the page as possible (which CSS also allows).

To a viewer, the recipe text might be read more if it were located to the right of a photo of a buttered piece of pumpkin bread on a small plate next to a lightly steaming cup of coffee.

SEO needs to read that ingredient list and baking instructions. Search engines now understand on a rudimentary level that the ingredients are indeed related to the optimized words- pumpkin bread recipe.

Additionally, it would take many extra lines of code to make a table in this example if you didn’t use CSS. Search engines don’t like extra code. In fact, given enough times, that “extra” code will make the keyword phrases seem less important and hurt rank.

Note: In the page code, a few thousand characters more than you need to get all of that content organized would normally just add to your page load time, and might be acceptable. But to a search engine, that time can really add up. It wont read through page after page, site after site, billionth after billionth character of unimportant code to find the relevant text. Therefore, the less code, the better your chances. Moral- Less code, more content.

SEO usually means REDO

In the previous pumpkin example, CSS will eliminate the need for almost any extra code at all, and provide the means to place the text to the right of the photo.

Now, imagine that someone had already created this page, but done so using other programming methods. The page could very well be W3C compliant, well programmed and got the job done. However, without designing and programming for optimization as in the above illustration, the end result would have no significant rank compared to others that do.

You can be sure that there exist at least 30 web sites built to rank for the keywords “pumpkin bread recipe”. Note- why did I use the number 30? It’s safe to assume if you’re not on the first three results pages of a search, you’re not being seen.

While this is a simple example, hopefully you understand that it would be impossible to optimize this simple page without redoing it. This isn’t always the case, but extrapolate this into detailed, multiple pages in an entire website and the issue is greatly magnified.

Aesthetic Importance vs. Traffic

Everyone has an idea of what they want their site to look like. The pretty factor- splash pages, cool flash and graphics must now be justified as to their importance to the bottom line. If you want/need to establish an online presence, you will have to make some compromises in these areas.

Understand exactly the role your site should play in your company marketing.

Ask- What is the goal of your website and who is its audience? Is it for existing clients to see? Is it to reach new clients? To venture into yet untapped market segments?

Ask- How strongly do your other marketing efforts promote your site?

Ask- Is your website an extension of your existing collateral that must reflect the same graphical look?

Ask- Is your website meant to assist to your sales force or is it your sales force?

Chances are you wont have any single answers. That’s ok. It will give you some meat for your designer/SEO to digest and develop a solution for you.

Real case of Design balanced with SEO and salability

If you sell jewelry solely online, you must have a catalog of exceptional photography and detailed, high-resolution close up images. But, you must be optimized and rank well if you want to sell any of that jewelry.

If such a company approached me with this project, my recommendation would be this: If you sell a product, people have to see that product. Lots of good images. The site should be slick and sheik and easy to navigate. The home page has to capture the buyer’s attention. If it’s very expensive jewelry, the site should have a lot of class and elegance. If it’s home made jewelry, the site shouldn’t look home made.

However, as you have no store front, if the online community can’t find you, you’re business will fail. So I’d have a very optimized home page with some discussion of the quality of your product, the history of your company, etc. This is also great sales copy. Ad a few special catalog pieces with descriptions below some smartly placed gifs, jpegs and readable type graphics built out of CSS and you’ve got a cool to look at, content rich, well optimized layout.

I’d make the link to your catalog very obvious and prominent. Note the catalog is not the homepage. I’d also include subsequent well written, in depth pages about the history of some specific pieces. Load them with targeted keywords and a few images. Again, make your catalog link very prominent. In doing so you’re creating relevant content for search engines AND providing additional pages that can rank.

The catalog can be database driven, simple and changeable, and you have the foundation to build your search rank.

Planning Your Site

If your designer is not a search engine optimizer, hire one to work with your designer from the initial development stage of your site. If you would like a visible presence that is not dependant on traditional marketing efforts to get your name around, then you will have to optimize.

However, with advances in html and css, text itself can be a very flexible and attractive design element with endless possibilities. Site optimization consists of some rigid, unbendable rules. It can be intertwined successfully with very creative and attractive design. If your Designer and SEO aren’t the same person or company, make sure they have the same, close working relationship.