Lisa Simpkins-Education

VIP Nings - Your Ning Network Traffic Generator

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:54:00 +0000

VIP Nings - Your Ning Network Traffic Generator

10 Ways To Reduce Tax Burden For Your Small Business

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:30:00 +0000

An ideal lawyer will not just have a string of impressive credentials or gold lettering on his door. He or she will be caring, concerned, and devoted to their work. You need to think carefully before laying your trust in a lawyer after all in some cases your life, future, money or property will be in his hands.Apart from doing extensive research to short list possible lawyers you must ensure that there is not conflict of interest, that you understand everything the retainer agreement states, and that you have checked the references and details regarding the practice.You will know the lawyer you have chosen is the perfect one if:1.He makes an effort to spend time to understand your case himself. He will not assign a legal assistant to take facts of the case down.2.From experience and knowledge he will know what is relevant and what is not. He will set aside and ignore irrelevant facts, opinions, and personal emotions that cloud the case on hand.3.He will insist that the footwork for the case be done thoroughly. All facts must be checked for accuracy and solid arguments jotted down with backing of earlier rulings.4.He will not just focus on the problem at hand but examine the problem from all sides. This will create a complete picture highlighting all factors of relevance and the different ways one can approach the case.5.He will use his foresight and anticipate moves by the opposition or opinions of the jury or judge and plan way ahead. Like a master chess player he will plan the case not by the day but by many hearings ahead.6.He will not waste time beating around the bush or create verbose statements—many words strung together which look impressive but mean nothing. He will insist that the case and its arguments be clearly stated.7.He will be self-disciplined, thorough, and self confident. Courteous at all times he will respect you as well as all the staff who work for him.8.He is recommended by not just his friends and relatives but by other professionals of good standing and from his field.9.He will not just present to you his victories but be happy to tell you why and how he lost certain cases.10.He will lay the cards on the table and tell you clearly whether your case stands to win or loose. He will not claim that winning is guaranteed. He will be honest and upfront about his opinions and advice.The bottom line is that the lawyer must be worthy of your trust. Use your inborn instincts and don’t go by the lawyer’s good looks or fancy car or office. After all it is competence in law and in court that is of essence to you.Everyone worries about taxes and looks for ways and means of reducing the tax burden. When you have a small business of your own you must up date your knowledge of tax laws that pertain to “small businesses.” As a business owner you must understand clearly about accounting systems and tax planning. Sit down with your accountant and plan on ways of maintaining business expenses, filing receipts, planning on “tax saving” investments, and a strategy for running the business in the most beneficial way.Did you know that:1.According to law you can reduce your tax liability by hiring family members to carry out work in your business. Pay your children and spouse to perform assigned duties. This way you can shift from higher tax rates to lower ones. 2.Consider hiring independent contractors instead of employees. You will save on payroll taxes. However ensure that you meet the IRS’s criteria. 3.Think about “deferring income” postpone receiving money to January instead of December. This means that payments received will be up for “tax” calculations a year away. However ask your accountant’s advice as the benefits are dependant on profit and losses for the year and your corporate legal structure.4.Take advantage of tax deductions allowed for charitable donations. Make donations in November or December instead of January so that you can include the donations for tax deductions in the current year.5.Maximize your expenditure on equipment and office supplies.[...]

Tips to Increase Ranking and Website Traffic

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:14:00 +0000

It is worth cataloguing the basic principles to be enforced to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.

•Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
•Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
•Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
•Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
•Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
•Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
•Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
•Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
•Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
•Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
•Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
•When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer’s experience fast and easy.
•When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
•Don’t look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.


Meet the Experts

3 Oft Overlooked Blog Promotion Methods

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:19:00 +0000

When promoting a blog it is tempting to concentrate on known methods for general site promotion and SEO (as discussed in other areas of this blog). Although you should spend a good amount of time on these methods, there are a number of blog-specific techniques that should also be considered. Here are three techniques pertinent to bloggers that are often overlooked.

Feed Subscribers
In documents relating to its Blog Search functionality, Google state: “A blog document having a high number of subscriptions implies a higher quality for the blog document.“ Implying that the number of blog subscribers might enhance the popularity of a blog in the Google Blog Search results. Therefore, use a FeedBurner or other widgets to validate newsreader aggregator subscribers.

Relevant Post Tags
Traditionally, categories have been the recognized means of categorizing WordPress blog posts, however recent iterations of the blogging engine offers per post tags. Ensure you utilize these on all posts, selecting a series of relevant tags per post. Tags need not be unique per post.

Authority Blogroll Links
Link authority is beginning to adopt a model more like the “web of trust” used as the basis of PGP mail signatures where “trust” or “authority” is gained and passed on. Gaining a link or two from blogs considered to be “high authority” can aid your SERPs significantly. Attempt to acquire one way links with established high authority blogs. Although the easiest means of acquisition is buying these links, it is frowned upon. The most robust method of acquiring these links is to be innovative in establishing linkworthy content.



SEO Content

Who's Blogging What

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:35:00 +0000

Social Media

* Facebook Releases Their Version Of Retweets As Twitterfication Continues [All Facebook]
* How To Create An Incentive For Visitors Who Fan Your Facebook Page [John Haydon]
* Facebook Developers Gain Access To User Emails Starting Today [All Facebook]
* Yelp Now Lets Customers 'Check In', Spread WOM [SmallBizTrends]
* 5 Social Sharing Extensions For Firefox [Social Times]
* Facebook How-To: Send a Note to Fan Inboxes [Walk Upright]
* Successful Twitter Marketing Strategies [Social Media Optimization]
* Who is looking at your Facebook? 3 Privacy Options you NEED to set [VKI Studios]

Search Marketing

* How to Employ Multiple Keywords for SEO & Conversions [SEOMoz]
* More info about synonyms at Google [Matt Cutts]
* State of the Index [Google Webmaster Central]
* Google Rolls Out New Targeting Options for Mobile Ads [Search Engine Journal]
* 4 Ways to Leverage Adwords Search Query Reports [PPC Blog]
* Reducing Pay per Click Costs [SEO Wizardry]
* Theming your Content for Higher Search Engine Results [SEO Design]
* How Do You Get Breadcrumbs in Google Results? [WebProNews]
* SEO Title Switch for Better Rankings [SEO Diva]

User Experience

* Is Your Registration Process Scaring Away Users? [ReadWriteStart]
* Ten Free Display Fonts From The Behance Network [SitePoint]
* 25 New High Quality Free Fonts [Smashing Magazine]
* Ten Ways to Improve Product Images [Cre8pc Usability ]
* 10 Creative and Ingenious Typographic Logos [Company Logos]
* Tips for Coding and Designing Usable Web Forms [Noupe]
* Designing for Visibility: How to Choose Digital Assets for Your Business [Greatfinds]

Email Marketing

* The 5 Rules of Writing Email Marketing Subject Lines [Directory Journal]
* How to Create a Campaign to Get More Facebook Followers [ProImpact7]
* What Does 'Social' Look Like in Email? [eROI]
* Balancing Your Email Frequency [Volusion]
* Optimize Your Email Sign-Up Stand Out & Entice [Bronto]
* HOW TO: Take Advantage of Social Media in Your E-mail Marketing [Mashable]
* Email Follow-Up Brings Abandoned Shopping Carts To Life [Mediapost]
* Top 14 Animated Emails of 09 [Style Campaign]
* Novelty value in email design: risks and rewards [Email Marketing Reports]
* Communicating with Your Favorite Applications through Email [Facebook Blog]

Analytics

* HTML5 and Analytics [Luna Metrics]
* Clicks vs. Visits Revisited [Google Analytics Blog]

Lisa Simpkins
Who`s Blogging What

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

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Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:49:00 +0000

How to Use Google's Local Business Center to Get Found on the Web

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:16:00 +0000

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important component to help your site rank well. It is a process that helps your website get found when their potential customers enter specific search terms. Put simply, SEO involves a blend of your site's Meta Tags, Titles, and internal copy working together to boost your rankings in Google and other search engines.There is also a supplemental way that your customers can find you. It's via a valuable tool provided by Google. It is easy to implement... and it's free. Yet, it's underutilized. Google Local Business Center will allow you to list your company when it is combined with a city name.Now, don't depend on Google Local for search traffic. I want to stress that there is no replacement for a search-engine friendly website with well-written content, meta description tags, keywords, h1 tags, etc. But if you are marketing your business to a local audience, Google Local is an easy-to-set-up potential source of website traffic that complements your other SEO and SEM efforts.The power of Google Local is that it lists its Local Map-based searches above the rest of the data. This means if you are using this service, your site can get seen before the number one listed site in the Google organic search results. Pretty powerful, eh?Here are the steps to get your company set up in the Google Local Business Center:1. Go to Google Local Business Center - you can find this by doing a search in Google.2. Sign in to Google (or Create a Google Account if you don't have one).4. Click "Add New Business."5. Enter your business information including name, address, website URL, company description, and the categories that best describe your business.6. Click "Next."7. If it shows your business is already on there, click "claim listing."8. If it's not there, click "add listing."9. Then you can enter additional details such as hours or operation, photos, payment options, and videos.10. Click submit.11. At this point, you will need to verify you business by phone (don't bother with the postcard option since it takes weeks to receive it!). Make sure you use a phone number that you can answer because as soon as you click "Finish," a Google computer will call you to give you a PIN number.12. Then, enter the Google PIN number in your account to verify your listing.After you are verified, your info will appear on Google Maps. You can go back to the Local Business Center to edit your information or see how many people went to your listing (there are fantastic tracking graphs). You can even ask customers to go to your Local listing to add reviews - this is a powerful tool to show searchers that people like your company.So, click over to the Google Local Business Center and list your business. It's not much work for a lot of exposure. And by doing this, you'll immediately put your company in front of 95% of your competitors.By:Wendy MaynardGoogle Business Center[...]

Join Me at Joini5

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:41:00 +0000

Join Me at Joini5

Phishing For Your Identity

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:51:00 +0000

Who hasn’t received an email directing them to visit a familiar website where they are being asked to update their personal information? The website needs you to verify or update your passwords, credit card numbers, social security number, or even your bank account number. You recognize the business name as one that you’ve conducted business with in the past. So, you click on the convenient “take me there” link and proceed to provide all the information they have requested. Unfortunately, you find out much later that the website is bogus. It was created with the sole intent to steal your personal information. You, my friend, have just been “phished”.


Phishing (pronounced as “fishing”) is defined as the act of sending an email to a recipient falsely claiming to have an established, legitimate business. The intent of the phisher is to scam the recipient into surrendering their private information, and ultimately steal your identity.


It is not at easy as you think to spot an email phishing for information. At first glance, the email may look like it is from a legitimate company. The "From" field of the e-mail may have the .com address of the company mentioned in the e-mail. The clickable link even appears to take you to the company's website, when in fact, it is a fake website built to replicate the legitimate site.


Many of these people are professional criminals. They have spent a lot of time in creating emails that look authentic. Users need to review all emails requesting personal information carefully. When reviewing your email remember that the "From Field" can be easily changed by the sender. While it may look like it is coming from a .com you do business with, looks can be deceiving. Also keep in mind that the phisher will go all out in trying to make their email look as legitimate as possible. They will even copy logos or images from the official site to use in their emails. Finally, they like to include a clickable link that the recipient can follow to conveniently update their information.


A great way to check the legitimacy of the link is to point at the link with your mouse. Then, look in the bottom left hand screen of your computer. The actual website address to which you are being directed will show up for you to view. It is a very quick and easy way to check if you are being directed to a legitimate site.


Finally, follow the golden rule. Never, ever, click the links within the text of the e-mail, and always delete the e-mail immediately. Once you have deleted the e-mail, empty the trash box in your e-mail accounts as well. If you are truly concerned that you are missing an important notice regarding one of your accounts, then type the full URL address of the website into your browser. At least then you can be confident that you are, in fact, being directed to the true and legitimate website.

Marketing Effectively With Email

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:31:00 +0000

Like any type of marketing, email marketing involves a great deal of time and effort to ensure the marketing campaign is effective. This is important because an ineffective marketing campaign of any type is a waste of money and resources. Spending a great deal of time, energy and moneyinto an email market-ing campaign which is not reaching the members of the target audience and is not convincing recipients of the email to make a purchase or visit your website is not worthwhile. This article will discuss how to implement an effective email marketing strategy to ensure your business, financial and personal goals are being met.One of the most important aspects of marketing effectively with email is to ensure your marketing efforts are reaching the members of your target audience. One way to do this is to ask former customers as well as potential customers to join your email distribution list. This will help to ensure the majority of members on your email distribution list have an actual interest in your products or services. This is important because you are much more likely to generate sales when you are marketing to this type of an audience than you would if you were marketing to a much larger audience without an interest in your products.Another aspect of marketing effectively is to hire an experienced professional writer to draft the content for your emails, e-newsletters, email courses or any other methods you are using to email your message to potential customers. Having your content written can give you a significant edge over the competition if they are drafting their content themselves. The quality of your content is a reflection on your business and poorly written content with no substance will reflect poorly on your business.Effective email marketing should also be written in a manner which will appeal to the target audience. If necessary you should conduct market research to determine demographical information for your target audience. This research may also determine preferences the target audience may have for receiving marketing information. This may include the type of language used, the format of the emails, the layout of the emails and even aesthetic appearance of the the emails. Paying attention to these details can make the email marketing campaign significantly more effective.Finally, effective email marketing should not be viewed as spam. This is a difficult situation. In many cases an email marketing campaign will involve distributing mass emails but care should be taken in these endeavors to avoid having these emails construed as spam. This is important because many Internet service providers include spam filters which apply algorithms to each email account to determine which messages are spam and which ones are legitimate. Emails which are deemed to be spam may never reach the intended recipients. Emails which make it through the spam filters may also be automatically deleted if the Internet user believes it looks like spam. For this reason care should be taken to ensure all marketing emails provide quality content, advertise only subtly and ideally are only sent to email recipients who have specifically requested information about your products or services. This will give you the best opportunity possible to reach your target audience and have a positive impression on them and hopefully entice them to make a purchase or visit your website.Lisa SimpkinsMarketing Effectively With Email[...]

Get2System

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:33:00 +0000

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Introducing...TheGet2System!

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Lisa Simpkins
Get2Sytem

What Are the 7 Proven Principles of Business Success?

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:55:00 +0000

The 7 Proven Principles to Business Success will overcome whatever limitation you have. Think of it as a recipe for success in business. All you have to do is first of all learn what the 7 principles are, and then apply them, in order. When you follow this recipe all of your challenges will fade away.Why do you own a business? Isn't it because you want a LIFESTYLE? You didn't intend to work long hours, be stressed, have little time off and be hassled with staff and customers did you?Isn't it time you made some changes for the better? After all, if you want to change some things in your life, you have to change some things in your life. If you're ready for a change here's the magic recipe you need to follow...Principle 1: Work on yourself to understand people.Business is all about people isn't it? You have them as customers, you employ them, but few people have realised the absolute key to success is understanding people at a much, much higher level. You sales and marketing skills are determined by what you know about people. Your leadership skills with your staff to get them to perform as well as you do is determined by your knowledge on people. So what's the best way to learn about other people? Easy, learn about yourself! You're a people and the more you learn about yourself the more you automatically learn about other people. Principle 2: Learn business success principles. There are so many principles to business success, but I'll emphasise just a few. One is, you're in business to make a profit, not just turnover. Turnover is a job, whereas profit gives you a LIFESTYLE. Your aim should be to increase your net profit percentage of turnover, as this allows you to grow and pay yourself whatever you desire.Net Profit percentage comes from improving everything you do, not just doing more of what you already do. How you answer the phone, how you greet people face to face, how you write your ads, improving your communication and leadership with your staff. All of these are areas to improve.Another principle of business success is cash flow. Cash flow means having the cash in your bank account that should be in your bank account. If customers cost you money before you get any back, that's negative cash flow, if you get cash before you incur a cost that's positive cash flow. The better you get at getting money up front with deposits and getting people to pay on time the better your cash flow.Principle 3: Set goals and have a plan to achieve them. Until you set a goal you don't have a reason WHY you will improve your business, therefore the HOW doesn't matter. People have to know why, before how. You'll want to know how to grow your business once you have set a written goal. When you have a goal its time to look at the relevant strategies for your business. I know of over 300 strategies, but most people can only think of about a dozen. Strategies are like tools. If you go to build a house with just a hammer, a saw and nails you will be building it for a long time. Business is the same. When people don't know what strategies are available or suitable to them how can they effectively grow their business? A Business Growth Plan is simply the order of implementation of those strategies beginning with the highest priority strategy. When you have documented goals for 3, 6, 9, 12 and 24 months with a list of strategies in order you have a Business Growth Plan that makes growing your business EASY!Principle 4: Turn your staff into a TEAM. Unfortunately business owners are trying to do it all on their own. They often don't train their team regularly with team meetings or one on one allocated time every week. I believe you have one role as a business owner, to be a great teacher! Your aim should be to teach everyon[...]

Send Groups to Get the Bar

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:47:00 +0000

Send Groups to Get the Bar

The Science of Social Media Marketing

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Download the Slides (PDF)
science-social-media-marketing-zarrella





Lisa Simpkins
HubSpot

Who Needs Employee Motivation Anyway?

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:26:00 +0000

Knowing how to motivate those who work for you is something that everyone needs to learn if they want to be a success in any industry that they are in. The people that work for you and the ones that make your product and/or provide the services that you are selling so make sure that they enjoy what they do and they will do it that much better. Sounds pretty simple huh? Well, it is and you can learn these things in just a little bit of time. You would be surprised to see what a differenced these types of tips can make to your over all company performance.

By taking the time and energy to motivate your employees you will find that not only do they work better for you, they are happier as well. Proper motivation means teaching people about themselves and what they want to get out of their lives. Your motivation will teach them what their own personal goals are and how they can achieve or even exceed them with ease. This is a great service that you will be doing them and your company. You will find the money pouring in when you do these types of things and that is always a good way to run a business right?

No matter where you live you can find some great motivational workshops that are set up specifically with the employee in mind. These are group activities that you can get everyone who works for you into. They are usually quite fun and the employees will not ever have to pay for them. In essence they are getting free lessons on how to live more happy and healthy both physically and emotionally, it is perfect!

Talk to some other businesses in your area and see what kinds of motivational services they have used in the past and how much they cost. Take the time to search out the very best motivational speakers as these will give you the best course for your money. They can change everything, even the home lives of your employees. The more innovative the ideas that these motivators have the better they may work. Don’t let yourself be boxed in by expectations, think outside the box and let the imagination soar. Be willing to try new things with your employees and watch things get better and better in the workplace.

You may also want to get a couple of good books on the subject. Books are full of some great info that you can use each and everyday in the workplace. They are affordable and if you go to a used bookstore very cheap indeed. Don’t worry about money as these motivational workshops are well worth it in the long run. They will bring in more revenue and get your workers working much more efficiently and productively. Motivations truly is key to a successful business, just you wait and see.


Lisa Simpkins
Motivation-Team Development

Ten Relationship Traits And Skills For Good Leadership

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:28:00 +0000

An important aspect of good leadership is the ability to work and relate with others. There are ten qualities that characterize successful leadership in the area of relating and communicating with other people.

1.Availability
A good leader is available and in touch with people. An important leadership skill is the ability to recognize needs and be able to respond to them quickly and in the moment.

2.Facilitating Harmonious Relationships
A good leader realizes the importance of harmonious relationships and is proactive in creating a harmonious atmosphere. Successful results are born out of harmony rather than conflict. Good leadership will prioritize keeping conflict and disharmony to the minimum.

3.Approachability
A good leader is approachable and has an open door policy. Good leadership creates an environment where openness and honesty can occur in an atmosphere of fairness rather than judgment.

4.Appropriate use of authority
Sensitivity to the proper use, and conversely the misuse, of their authority is the whole mark of good leadership. A good leader will not use their position of authority for self gratification and promotion or in a controlling and domineering manner. Successful leaders use their positional power with wisdom and sensitivity to the appropriateness of the circumstances.

5.Confidentiality
Good leaders conduct conferences and meetings in an atmosphere of trust. They display appropriate confidentiality and respect towards others and about others.

6.Self Motivated
Good leaders set and use goals to motivate themselves and others. They understand the importance of personal and professional development. Successful leaders do what is necessary to upgrade their knowledge and skills and be on the cutting edge in their field. Successful leaders not only motivate themselves in personal development but also motivate those around them.

7.Provide Support
Good leaders are able to provide emotional support for those for whom they are responsible. They recognize the importance of encouragement and inspiring confidence and also give recognition of a job well done.

8.Maintaining Motivation and Team Spirit
A good leader provides incentives and motivators to improve the performance of their employees to challenge them to maintain quality results.

9.Clear Communication
A good leader is an excellent communicator. Their leadership involves communicating clearly the objectives and procedures required of a task. They set clear, attainable, and measurable goals.

10.An Understanding of Group Dynamics
A good leader understands the dynamics of group relationships. Successful leaders have the ability to lead groups without aggravating conflict and minimizing disharmony. They are inclusive and skilled in creating a sense of team unity. They are adept at balancing the strengths and weaknesses of the group for best results.


Lisa Simpkins
Marketing Center

The A-Z Of Motivation

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:12:00 +0000

Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change. Getting bad grades make you realize that you need to study. Debts remind you of your inability to look for a source of income. Being humiliated gives you the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for yourself to save your face from the next embarrassment. It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help you to get up and get just the right amount of motivation you need in order to improve yourself.With all the people trying to pull you down and waiting for you to fail, how can you stay motivated and positive?Try this A to Z of tips for motivationA - Achieving your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places because they will only drag you down. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”B - Believe in your self, and in what you can do. Believe in your possibilities and your dreams. Every advancement of humankind has taken place because someone believed in themselves.C – Consider all of the angles and aspects of everything you encounter, whether it is people or situations. Motivation comes from strength of purpose. Being able to see both points of view will give you more chance of being successful and keeping those around you motivated too.D – Don’t give up and don’t give in. Every successful person from J K Rowling to Walt Disney to Sylvester Stallone to Thomas Edison had multiple failures before being successful. Sometimes their failures or rejections ran into the hundreds before they achieved success.E – Enjoy. Work as if you don’t need money. Dance as if nobody’s watching. Love as if you never cried. Learn as if you’ll live forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.F – Family and Friends. Use your family and friends to help you stay motivated. The big football teams have cheerleaders and fans to encourage them. Your family and friends can be your cheerleaders and fans. Use them to keep you going when you feel your motivation drifting.G – Give that little bit extra. Self improvement happens everywhere all the time, whether you are at home, at work or at school. Anthony Robbins tells us that the difference in effort between excellent and outstanding is miniscule, yet the difference in rewards is massive. Giving that little bit extra can put you into the outstanding.H – Hang on to your dreams. There may be times when it looks bleak, but hang on to your dreams. The night is darkest just before the dawn. It is at this moment that you are closest to success and 95% of people will give up. Push through this moment and you’ll achieve your dreams.I – Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t get involved in their dramas or toxicity – just walk away. Surround yourself with people who will encourage and support you. Remove those who want to pull you down and watch you fail from your life. You’ll find it much easier to stay motivated.J – Joy and gratitude. Perhaps two of the fundamentals for motivation and success is to be joyful in what you do and grateful for what you have.K – Keep pushing forwards no matter how hard life may seem. In the toughest moments you can choose to move forwards or to run away. It’s your decision – one path brings you closer to the success, the other takes you away from it. Which do you want to follow?L – Learn to love your self. This isn’t as easy as it sounds for most people, but by loving yourself you will be happier and more motivated because you will believe you deserve what you achieve.M – Make things happen. Mot[...]

Effective Email Marketing

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:41:00 +0000

Email marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of Internet advertising. This is because there are many distinct advantages to the concept of email marketing. However, email marketing does have some disadvantages as well. In this article we will examine the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing and will also provide some insight into how to plan and execute an effective email marketing campaign.Email marketing certainly has a set of unique advantages over other types of marketing both online and offline. Perhaps one of the most significant advantages to email marketing is the ability to reach a worldwide audience with minimal effort. It is certainly possible to reach a worldwide audience with other types of advertising but traditional types of advertising such as television, radio and the print media are not nearly as effective for reaching potential customers around the world all at once. Another major advantage to email marketing is it is extremely affordable. This is significant because there are many other types of marketing, including Internet marketing, which are significantly more expensive than email marketing. The costs associated with email marketing are minimal. Ideally you will already have a list of email recipients who are interested in your products and services so there is no cost associated with obtaining a list of email addresses. Additionally the cost to send out emails is minimal and can be considered part of your regular operating costs. All of these factors already make email marketing extremely cost effective. However, there is some cost involved in email marketing. Primarily this is the costs associated with writing the advertisements and creating any graphics which will accompany the email advertisements. This will require hiring a writer to write the copy for the advertisement and a designer to create and implements the graphics. The cost of these services will vary pretty widely but in general you will pay more for writers and designers with more experience. This is because these writers and designers are expected to be able to produce a higher quality of work than those with less experience could produce. The most obvious disadvantage to email marketing is the possibility of having your email marketing viewed as spam. This is a very important problem because it could prove to be quite costly in terms of the profit margin for your business. Each day Internet users are bombarded with unsolicited emails serving as advertisements. This problem has reached epic proportions and the abundance of spam infiltrating the email boxes of innocent Internet users has to be cautious and suspicious about any email they receive which is unsolicited and appears to be promoting a particular product or service. Emails which contain subject lines or content which appear to be similar to spam may be automatically transferred to a spam email folder by the email system. Emails which are not automatically deleted may be deleted without being opened simply because the recipient does not recognize the sender of the email. Both of these problems can result in essentially wasted time for the business owner because the recipients are not even viewing the emails advertising the products and services offered by the business. Additionally, they may result in complaints being lodged against the company for being a purveyor of spam. Now that you understand the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing, you might wonder how you can maximize the advantages to use email marketing to your advantage. The most importan[...]

8 Important Elements for Small Business Web Sites

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:11:00 +0000

Key visitors to your commercial pages include web robots that crawl the internet and catalog your content. Having proper HTML source code, plus the right combination of text and graphic presentation, is just one secret to success. Proper code may mean higher robot ratings, and the "look" is equally important. Once a new prospect finds your web site, you have 5 seconds to get them to stay.As a small business web site owner, you may have asked "Why don't we get any hits?". Did you know web pages can load and appear correct with improper or deprecated HTML code? A browser may ignore your mistakes, and display what it thinks you meant, and it may look great. Web robots may not be as forgiving.Following is a list of 8 basic elements for good search engine placement that need to be considered in your design and web site promotion. For details on code issues from the worldwide authority, visit the World Wide Web Consortium to view DOCTYPE and other quality standards.1. DOCTYPE Statement2. Page Title3. Proper HTML Code4. META Description5. META Key Words6. First Paragraph of the Home Page7. An Extra Page of Just LINKS8. Backlinks (Links to your pages)These 8 key items are either missing or poorly designed in 85% of all web sites. Some search engines may only list the other 15% in their directories. In other words, as few as 15% of the 6 billion web pages online ever make it into some search engines. Even worse, there are mistakes that may result in your page being blacklisted, and the search engine web crawlers may never come back to see if it's corrected. This could explain why you "never get any hits".Web sites can be simple and professional without using fancy software to create your pages. Veteran programmers hand code and many create the HTML in NotePad. Web authors who choose to use flash, frames, or the latest software may be losing a significant portion of new visitors (customers) because the visitor may lack the technology or newest version of browsers. If they are turned off and leave without giving your site a fair viewing, it could mean lost profits.Most designers use prepackaged software to create web pages. If the software leaves out any of the key elements, the code is hidden, and you'll never know your site was not optimized for search engines. The designer may not know, or care, about these items as long as the page looks attractive. Note: Search engine algorithms vary by company, so some elements such as "an extra page of links" may not be as important today with some search robots. Backlinks refer to marketing your site and getting other web sites to link to yours.Finally, business visitors want information. They do not visit your home page to be entertained. Most have a need (problem) and want a fast answer (solution), so designs should be created to minimize the use of music or video unless that's your core business. Anything that distracts from a positive first impression may violate my "5 Second Rule".Lisa SimpkinsGoogle[...]

Team building is very important when it comes to managing people. People are simply more willing to …

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:19:00 +0000

Team building is very important when it comes to managing people. People are simply more willing to work together, when the atmosphere encourages it. For many organizations this is quite necessary for the business to run well. When everyone gets along, things just go better. They provide better service to the customer. They work together to deliver satisfaction with smiles. They also help to promote employee retention. Customers are happy, employees are happy, and the world is now a better place, right?

Team building is anything but simple. It is not something that can be done overnight. Nor is it something you can force people to do. So, how can you effectively build your team to encourage them to bond and develop working relationships that are positive? There are many things that you can do. Here are some ideas:

• Set the example yourself. As the leader of the team, it is up to you to provide a good relationship with your team players. You want them to feel comfortable with you as well as with others. Don’t favor some and don’t become too friendly either.

• You can encourage relationships to work by fostering a teamwork style. Make sure that the goals are established and that each team player is aware of them. They should know that you want a team work environment that is what you are looking for in your employees.

• Also, provide them with opportunities to get to know each other. Take the team out to dinner on you. Encourage them to talk about their families and lives so that they can bond.When team building is successful, there are many things that can happen. Not only will the business run better, but you can foster good qualities in individuals to come out. You can have a bond of trust and reliance with your team. Team building is an exceptional quality that you should encourage in some form or another with your team..


Lisa Simpkins
Skype: lisa.simpkins
Marketing Center

Streaming video for your website

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:18:00 +0000

When considering streaming video for your website, you need to look at all the different ways in which a person can benefit from either viewing or offering streaming video. This is a very popular method of being able to view information and videos on the internet, and there are many reasons for this. While some people offer the ability to download certain materials and video clips from their website, other people are able to offer streaming video from their website in order to help capture the attention of the individuals that are interested in viewing it. First of all, an individual can take up less memory on their website by offering streaming videos.

Offering individuals to download your videos from your website may cause the site to run slower if many people are downloading all at once. When a site or a video is especially popular, this is a good thing when it comes to the video, but it could be a negative thing when it comes to the website from which the video is available. However, this is not the only way in which an individual is able to benefit and proper from being able to offer streaming video from their website to the viewers of the website. More benefits are in store for these individuals, as well as for the individuals that are able to utilize the website for their viewing pleasure.

Streaming video takes up less time when it comes to playing the material in most instances, so many people prefer it to downloading the material. Streaming video for your website can be played almost immediately, much like an individual can turn on their television and see the channels immediately. There are some times in which an individual will need to wait very momentarily in order to watch the video simply because the media player and the host server need to establish a connection, and then the video needs to be buffered, but then it can be played quite easily. Meanwhile, the process of downloading a video can take a longer amount of time since the individual will not be able to play the video at all until it is completely downloaded and the individual has located the file on their computer. Depending on a person’s connection to the internet, the time of this process will vary greatly.

However, compared to streaming video it is in most cases slower than the streaming video is when it is offered on a website. As a result, there are many people that are interested in being offered the chance to view streaming video off of a website as opposed to being able to download a video off of a website and then having to find the file and play it from another media player. It is much less complicated to just play the file on the website, and it often takes much less time to complete this action when compared to the other available options of viewing or playing a particular video or file.


YouTube

Tracking the Results of Internet Marketing

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:31:00 +0000

As with any marketing campaign you may run to assist your business, it is important to track the results of your Internet marketing campaign. This should be done on a continual basis so you can ensure the strategies you are utilizing are working. It can also help you to determine when a strategy is not working so you do not continue to invest time and money on a strategy which is not beneficial to your business. This article will discuss some of the options for tracking the results of your Internet marketing campaign.Business owners who use banner ads have a simple way to track whether or not their banner ads are effective. This is possible because they can place code in the banner ad which will supply them with feedback each time a user clicks on the banner ad. This information is transmitted to the business owner so he can evaluate which of his banner ads are generating the most interest. If the business owner is currently using two different styles of banner ads on comparable websites he can use this information to determine which design is most effective. This is important because if one style is significantly more effective than the other it might be worthwhile to convert all of the banner ads to this style or to make changes which will make the two different styles more similar. If the business owner is using the same banner ad on a number of different websites, the feedback can help him determine which websites are generating the most traffic for him. If he determines some websites are not generating a great deal of traffic it makes sense to discontinue the banner ads on these websites as they are not cost effective. Business owners who utilize affiliate marketing during their Internet marketing campaign may also be interested in tracking the results of their affiliates. This is necessary because affiliates are often paid according to the results they generate but it is also useful for determining which affiliates are most successful. This information can be useful if different ads are running on different affiliate websites because it can be an indication of which websites are most effective. Tracking the results of affiliate marketing is similar to tracking the results of banner ads. You can place code in the ads which appear on the affiliate’s website to provide you with feedback each time a user clicks on the ad. Another way to evaluate the results of an Internet marketing campaign is to simply closely monitor your own website traffic and sales. This is especially important when it is done in consideration with the type of marketing you are currently running. For example if you launch a new banner ad campaign with ads appearing on numerous high profile websites concurrently, you may notice an almost immediate increase in website traffic and sales. This information most likely indicates the banner ads are successful. However, the problem with using this type of evaluation is it does not pinpoint successes or failures. If you launch your banner ad on five different websites at once you may notice an immediate increase in traffic and sales but will not be aware which websites are the most effective. For example, your advertisement may be running on five different websites but only one of these websites may be attracting attention for your business. Similarly if you are running several different styles of ads, some styles may attract more attention than others but you will not be able to differentiate simply by evaluating [...]

The Use of Forums for Viral Marketers

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:32:00 +0000

Recently, forum marketing has been touted as a kind of free, organic, viral marketing. But because so many viral marketers go into forums with the intention of marketing products or other services, their actions and attitude unwittingly causes the exact opposite of the desired effect.

Forums aren’t marketplaces but when used that way, the viral marketers’ actions become offensive and will only inspire the wrath of fellow members and marketers, not to mention moderators who can close them from the site with the click of a button.

In order to be effective, this kind of marketing carries a certain degree of commitment, responsibility and respect. The first requirement is to take a personal interest in the main topic of the forums. Not only does that mean be apart of the forum regularly, but it also means developing a good relationship with both other members and the moderators, as well as taking an active interest in helping other people. Of course, it also means abiding by and all rules that exist. By doing that, one can develop a reputation and, since it is human nature to work with a trusted colleague, business will naturally develop from this.

This type of viral marketing has already suffered some abuse and because of this, many forums have recently developed stringent rules designed to protect their members from abusive or overly-aggressive viral marketers. One forum grants .sig files only after a member has created 100 valid posts and another has disallowed ads in sig files altogether.

Viral Marketers must respect that the purpose of a forum is to be a website to exchange ideas on a given topic. It is not there to advertise products or services. By staying on the topic and posting questions and answers, a marketer’s reputation will grow and this creates the potential for sales naturally.

In order to be successful using forums to do viral marketing there are some things that are required.

Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research.As a viral marketer becomes a regular member, they will hopefully develop a good reputation and without saying a word about their promotion, those who are interested in their product will approach them.

Warrior Forum

Search Engine Optimization and Advertising

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:41:00 +0000

In today’s net-savvy world it has become common for any business to have a website which they use mostly for advertising their products and services. With the advent of search engines it has become even easier for the customers to search for the stuff online. For a website to be successful its link should land in the first three pages which the search engine brings and the rank of the page should be high which means many visitors come to the site. This can be achieved by applying search engine optimization or popularly known as SEO. This is a marketing strategy which increases the quality and quantity of traffic flow to a particular website via search engines. SEO not only affects the search engine results, but also image search, video search and industry specific vertical search engines. It determines how a search algorithm functions and searches what is popular with people. When a website link is submitted to a search engine, a spider crawls through a page to gather links which lead to other pages and stores those pages on the server of the search engine. The information collected from these pages is sent to the indexer, whose job is to extract information from those pages such as the keywords and their weights, the location of the page and other links that are stored for the spider to crawl in future. In the beginning, the search engine optimizer algorithms were dependant on the keywords, Meta tags, and index files provided by the Webmaster. Meta tags provided information about a particular page, but using them for indexing the pages didn’t prove to be successful as some Webmasters added irrelevant Meta tags to increase the number of hits and earn huge ad revenue. They even changed the HTML of the web pages to achieve a good rank for the page. But this was a case of abuse as it fetched irrelevant pages. Search engines then began utilizing complex ranking algorithm, which were difficult for the webmasters to manipulate so as to provide web surfers with genuine results. The rank of the web page was calculated mathematically by functions using strength and quantity of the inbound links. The higher the rank of the page the more chances it had to be viewed by a person. Later algorithms were developed which considered various other on-page factors such as rank and off-page factors such as hyperlink. Since the webmasters couldn’t manipulate the page rank, they began exchanging, selling and buying links, which lead to link spamming and even creation of numerous sites dedicated for this purpose. Algorithms became more complex by every passing day and top search engines kept their algorithms a secret. As the cost of SEO increased, advertisers were roped in to pay for it, which finally resulted in high quality web pages. Although investing in SEO is very fruitful, but at the same time is risky because with out any prior notice the algorithms being used are bound to change and the search engine will stop directing visitors to the page. Many consultants are available in the market that provides SEO services. They manipulate the HTML source code of the web site like menus, shopping carts and sometimes even the content of the website to draw more traffic. Search engines like Yahoo has algorithms that extract pages not according to the page rank but according to the cost per click or set fee, that is if a advertiser desires that the page containing his ad be displayed, he is expect[...]

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