Work Life Balance

Our Skating Trip Confirms My ‘WHY’
I have 2 young boys. The oldest is in Kindergarten. A couple of months ago my eldest had a field trip with his class to go skating at a rink.

Now, in his short life, he had never skated before ; )… but, as most young boys of 6 years believe, they can do anything and do it as well as someone who’s been doing it for years!

They have a ‘take on the world’ attitude that makes all possibilities possible!

The day arrived. With the entire kindergarten class, we arrived at the rink. We collected our skates, got them on and my Son quickly discovered that -first- you have to learn how to *balance* on skates!

Then…, you have to learn how to *walk* in the tightly laced up boots with thin metal blades on the bottom of them!

Once we mastered that, the next part was stepping onto the ice…

Have you been back on the ice, after a long period of time of NOT being on the ice? The ice is a lot more slippery than you remembered, right!

My son saw some older kids get on the ice, and just start skating. So, he immediately concluded that he could do that too.

Down he went, from the first step onto the ice, and then every step thereafter.

One thing about my son - he’s not a quitter. When he wants to do something of his own free will, there’s no helping him… No one can help, not teachers, not other parents, not me, no one.

So, I had to be patient, love him and let him struggle at it for a few minutes. Countless times I asked him if he wanted to accept my help; to which I would get a very frustrated “no!”

Now this went on for about 25 minutes like this… Him trying to get his feet under him… him losing his footing and landing on his stomach on the ice… Him finally getting some footing, and promptly falling down. On and on it went.

After 25 minutes of him “swimming” on the ice trying to get his footing, and then failing to stand up for more then 5 seconds on the ice, he finally accepted my help. But, just to help him to stand up.

He wanted to skate in the center of the ice rink and refused to hold on to any of the side boards - much too childish for him!

And, he certainly was not happy with the fact that his male counterparts from class were seeing his Mother teaching him how to skate, and helping him to get up off the ice, time and time again.

Eventually, he learned that a little help goes a long way, and he let me help. With my knees and back bent, holding most of his weight, flailing arms and legs; I was able to coach him on how he needed to get his balance centered on the middle part of the skate blades [thank God, I used to Figure Skate!]

After about an hour of this, we managed to get a grip on the movements and strokes needed to perform the “art” of skating!

And, after that hour was up, he could skate on his own, get up from a fall, balance and carry on skating.

I was so proud of his perseverance, and his commitment to completion - as stubborn as he was during the whole thing!

I am so thankful that I was able to be there to give him the one-on-one coaching that none of the teachers had time to give him. And, none of the other kid’s parents would have been able to give him.

More importantly, experiencing the day with my son re-confirmed that my decision to be a parent at home for my children was the right one. Because that is where my precious children need me to be.

I am thankful that I found a home based Program that allows me the TIME-FREEDOM to raise my kids from home, while it works for me in the background making sales and providing what I need to support my family financially.

Business Coaching #2 - Work-Life Balance & Fulfilled Living
The first time I heard about the term work-life balance I was surprised that anybody even thought of balancing the two. Wasn’t that like counting apples and oranges? Still, the idea was quite exciting and I thought I’d explore it a bit more:

I thought long and hard about what kind of working hours I wanted to have, what kind of office, how many people. By means of visualization all of that became a clear image that I was drawn to. Interestingly enough my enjoyment of the visions lasted only until the moment I realized that all my dreams and visions had come true! There is a Chinese curse: May you reach all your goals. That is exactly how I felt: empty and cursed - dreamless. So I pondered what I could do differently.

First of all I learned that constant striving for new actions creates a mess of outcomes that are not necessarily beneficial. It is like attempting to weave a rug using thread that is in a tangled mass. Imagine yourself inspired by the idea of the colors you want to use, the thread choice and the size of the rug. Your vision is clear and you slowly start working on it until you meet the first obstacle: knots that start taking you away from the initial goal. As you are solving the unpredicted problem, emotions arise, impatience, confusion, you end up working on untying the knot rather than weaving the rug.

My personal experience was that I dealt with both with determination and focus, so I kept balancing the acts, weaving and untying the knots, keeping myself busy, thinking that was just how life was.

There are times when it is right just to sit back and relax, allow thoughts to clear and become a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper ready to be filled with fresh ideas. When I first was taught this, I was initially confused and even upset by the lack of taking action and I rebelled against the process. I questioned if it was right for me, but each time I would face the same old fact: action was the thing that brought me where I was in the first place, and I wasn’t fulfilled.

Thinking about what triggered this awareness, I realized it was a simple exercise that seemed at first to be non-action:

Exercise for clearing the mind.

Find a comfortable chair and while sitting (or lying) observe your thoughts while not acting upon them. Free your mind of all ‘I shoulds’, of all ‘I musts’. Once a thought comes that brings a ‘WOW!’ state, a real desire to act, (sometimes there are other versions of it: ‘Wouldn’t that be nice!’, ‘I wish!’, ‘That would be great!’), proceed with one action that takes you closer to the realization of that thought. For those doing the exercise for the first time: when moving from thought to an action, choose small steps that are easy to achieve and give you a sense of completion.

Do this exercise daily for 20 to 60 minutes a day.

Copyright 2007 Dalida Turkovic

Seven Tips for Working at Home With Kids
You can stay at home with your children while still advancing in your career. So how do you make it work? Here are seven tips.

1. Control your environment.
A clearly designated office will help you stay on task. And an organized workspace will help minimize distractions and make the most of the limited time you have available.

2. Break work into manageable chunks.
Most WAHMs rely on their “to do” lists. When my three children are awake, I strive to give them my full attention, though I always have such a list on the table. The list just seems to grow all day and when naptime (or bedtime) rolls around, I am focused and ready to tackle the tasks at hand.

3. Make the most of quiet time.
When are you most productive? It may be possible for you to get work done during the day (while your children are napping or at school), but, chances are, the best opportunities for productivity will occur when your children are down for the night. My workday, for example, typically begins at 4 a.m. That way, I can spend uninterrupted, quality time with my kids during the day and remain relatively rested.

4. Remember your priorities.
If you find yourself consistently ignoring your children, they are better off in the care of someone who is less distracted.

5. Get help when you need it.
Lesley Spencer is the founder and director of Home Based Working Moms. “I think it is important to understand it is very difficult to be a successful mom and worker at the same time,” Spencer says. “If you are working, your children are going to need your attention. Of course, you can get by with short amounts of work or phone calls but repeated attempts to work while your children are with you is not fair to them or you,” she says. “I feel it is best to work while your children are asleep or at school. If you are working more than about 10 hours a week, you probably need outside help to give your children the attention they need. Consider part time preschools, Mothers Day Out programs, neighborhood babysitters, family or friends or a babysitting coop to help with your child care needs.”

6. Take time off. When your office is always open (and it is right down the hall), it can be difficult to stop yourself from sneaking in just one more task. Establish office hours for yourself, and try to avoid allowing those hours to expand. It helps me to turn off my computer after a certain time each day.

7. Reflect often on the many ways your children are benefiting from your work at home situation. When I start to feel overwhelmed all the unfinished tasks in both my home and my home office, I think about how I am demonstrating to my children that there are, in fact, ways to balance home and family. The path may be difficult at times, but it is certainly worth the effort. And I hope this is a lesson that they will teach to their own children.

Attitude and Expectations
There are two key words that lead to success in life. These words control the successful outcome of your business, marriage, and many other areas of life. Although you may have incredible talent and skill in life, you will fail if you do not master these two words- and vice versa. Even if you have only limited talent and skill, you will win if you live by them. These two words determine your future. They are attitude and expectation.

If you have a positive, forward-looking attitude, you will accomplish great things. How is your attitude? Does it need an improvement? Are you positive and upbeat? If you have the attitude that every challenge or obstacle leads to new opportunity, success is all but guaranteed. Thomas Edison was said to have worked on creating the electric light bulb because darkness interfered with his ability to conduct further experiments. He wanted to be able to work long into the night. Edison could have moaned about the darkness, though that would not have done any good. He used his attitude and solved a problem of darkness. There are thousands of examples in life of how some people took lemons and, with a great attitude, made lemonade.

Start building your attitude today. Convince yourself that you are the best at what you do. You have to be convinced yourself before anyone else will be convinced. The attitude you bring when faced with objections in your business will help you handle them. The attitude that you take when you have a problem will make the difference as to its outcome.

One technique to improve your attitude is using affirmations. Affirmations drive positive mental pictures into your subconscious mind. Create affirmations like:

* I am a great _____ (you fill the blank).
* I am skilled at handling objections in my business.
* People do business with me because I am positive, knowledgeable, and professional.
* I earn__________(you fill the blank).
* I am a great spouse.

Use these affirmatives, or create your own, to improve your mental attitude daily.

The second power word is expectation. If you don’t expect to win, you will not win. Henry Ford said, “If you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.” Make sure to set the positive expectation of success before your appointment with a prospect or client. You also need to set a positive expectation before every call you make. Expectation is the gateway to confidence. The first step to having unshakeable confidence is to believe that you are the person for your job. If your expectation is strong enough, people will come around to your way of thinking. You just need to be stronger in will and mental focus than your clients, prospects, and others in your field. A perfect example is Henry Ford.

Many years ago, Ford went to his engineers and told them to build a V-8 engine. They said it could not be done. Ford plainly told them to go do it and report back in 90 days. When the 90 days were done, they reported back to Ford. They had spent the whole 90 days figuring out why a V-8 engine was impossible. In the meeting with Ford, they spent their time trying to convince him it could not be done; a V-8 engine was impossible and could never be created. Ford’s attitude and expectation of a V-8 engine was stronger than the engineers’ attitude and expectation that it could not be done. We all know who won in the end.

Your expectation will create your reality. You have to expect before you can receive. You need to expect the people and situations that will enable you to create the future you desire. Expectation does not mean you don’t have to work. You will work harder than before to develop the outcome you desire. The expectation takes away the fear of failure. Don’t be paralyzed by the fear of failure. Failure is a natural part of success. You cannot have success without failure. It’s truly a masterful design. You cannot have good without evil. The exhilaration of success would be lost without the frustration of failure. Most people forget their failures over time and only remember their victories. Take Babe Ruth as an example; he hit the most home runs of his time. He also had the most strikeouts. No one remembers that. . .only the home runs. . . the successes.

Set your attitude to positive. Look for the opportunities in every situation. Expect to win, every time.

Vince Lombardi had a famous saying:

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t have to win once in awhile; you don’t do things right once in awhile; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit; unfortunately, so is losing.”

Lombardi had the right attitude and the right expectations. He believed they would win, every time.

Burnout: The Effects Of Unavoidable Job Stress
Stress seems to be an inevitable part of any job. Even minor things can lead to feelings of stress. Petty arguments with supervisors and conflicts with co-workers are among the most common every day stressors. For some employees, however, the level of stress experienced goes far beyond job strain and the irritation of daily hassles. For some employees, the level of stress experienced on the job builds up until it is overwhelming and leads to a condition called burnout.

What is burnout? In general, burnout is described as emotional exhaustion. The most common symptoms associated with this emotional exhaustion include overwhelming fatigue, headaches, stomachaches, and impaired sleep. And, as burnout develops, it often leads to a deterioration in social skills. Individuals in the midst of burnout just do not interact with others as they did in the past. They often withdraw from others. They may lose patience more easily. They may become more abrupt and abrasive in their dealings with others. Their language on the job may become cruder. They may appear to be moody and depressed.

Over time, burnout has profound effects on job performance. Simply put, job performance suffers. Victims of burnout are likely to reduce the amount of work they do. They may avoid tasks that they find most stressful. Their absenteeism is likely to increase. In the worst case, they may suddenly quit their jobs with little notice to their employers. Supervisors may not be able to recognize burnout for what it is, but they certainly will notice the effects of burnout on job performance.

Burnout often occurs in those jobs we think of as the helping professions. Professions such as teaching, law enforcement, nursing, and social work are all potential breeding grounds for burnout. Interestingly, within these professions, burnout tends to strike the most dedicated and most idealistic individuals. While burnout has been observed for years in the so-called helping professions, it can occur in a wide range of jobs. The key seems to be the presence of inescapable, day-to-day frustrations which build up overtime.

The frustrations that lead to burnout can take many forms. Studies of professions such as teaching and nursing have suggested that burnout occurs when workers begin to believe that no one appreciates the work they do or the help they provide. Over time the difficulty of their task and the presence of ambitious, but ambiguous, goals may lead them to believe that their efforts have no real impact. When the feeling “it doesn’t matter what I do” sets in, burnout is not far behind. Of course, these feelings are not limited to the helping professions. Anytime workers feel overwhelmed by the demands of their job and think that there is little support for their efforts, burnout becomes a threat.

Fortunately, there are several things that can be done to eliminate or reduce the development of burnout. First of all, it is important for supervisors to actively support their subordinates, to treat them fairly, and to provide them with appropriate feedback. Second, it is important for employees to develop a realistic view of what they can accomplish on the job. Unrealistic goals are a recipe for frustration and stress. Third, employees need to maintain a balanced lifestyle. Individuals who blur the boundaries between work and home are good candidates for burnout. Finally, employees need to learn specific techniques for reducing and managing their own perceived levels of stress. These techniques may include exercise and various relaxation procedures. Meditation, tai chi, and qigong are all examples of holistic health practices that might prove helpful. Practitioners have long argued that these disciplines enhance relaxation and reduce stress in the individual.

Small Business

Have You Claimed All Your Small Business Tax Deductions?
If you are running a small business, then you need to know all the heads under which you can claim business tax deductions. These could go a long way in drastically reducing the total amount of tax you pay at yearend. According to the Code 162 of the Internal Revenue Service, all ordinary and necessary expenses that are paid or incurred for carrying out any trade or business are claimable as deductions during the taxable year.

Speaking on broad terms, these expenses could include rents, salaries and allowances paid to the employees, traveling expenses, entertainment expenses and such overheads. Though these are all ordinary and necessary expenses, all of them may not be deductible. The IRS has its own parameters to judge what ordinary and necessary expenses are. According to them, the expenses should be fanciful or exorbitantly large. The expenses should be commensurate with the circumstances under which they are made. Also any personal expenses would not count towards business tax deductions. Showing such expenses as business tax deductions could land the taxpayer in a soup.

Contrary to what the tax-saving pundits say, it is not a very good idea to make payments to relatives and show them as business expenses. The tax auditors scrutinize such expenses under a microscope. If you do not have justifiable cause to make the payment to your relative, do not do it.

But, all the expenses that are made directly for conducting the business are claimable. These include the expenses incurred on the transport or on the vehicles themselves in running the business. There are two ways to claim vehicle tax deduction. The first is the standard mileage method I which the sum is deducted by per mile formula which is devised by the IRS itself. The second method is the actual expense method in which the actual costs incurred in operating the vehicle are deducted. Depreciation charges and gas and maintenance bills can be shown here.

If you need to entertain clients on a regular basis, then it can be shown for deductions. About half of the entire expenses incurred in entertaining clients could be claimed. This could include expenses like throwing parties for your clients, taking them to restaurants, concerts, movies or even for inviting them over. Needless to say, there should be some proof that the meeting was for business purposes and not plainly for pleasure. Each bill needs to be shown, and the purpose of the meeting written on each of them.

It is a good business habit to file and keep records of all expenses incurred during the course of the year. These could be claimed as deductions when the assessment time comes. Your everyday expenses to keep the business going like rent, stationery, maintenance and electricity bills could be shown in such expenses.

Make a habit of filing your expenses in different folders so that they are easily accessible at the end of the year. Also keep these records after the tax is paid, because they could be needed for verification at any point of time.

The 11 Keys to Guerrilla Marketing Success
If you own a small business then it shouldn’t come as any surprise to you that one of the main problems facing most small businesses is marketing. How do you get your message out there? How do you make your business stand out from your competitors?

And, possibly most importantly, how do you do it at a price that you can afford?

It’s not easy, unless you toss away the blinders of traditional marketing and embrace what have come to be known as Guerrilla Marketing techniques, as first described in Jay Conrad Levinson’s now-classic 1984 book, Guerrilla Marketing.

Let’s begin your conversion to Guerrilla Marketing by asking 11 key questions about your business.

1. How would you describe your business?

If you cannot adequately describe your business in 25 words or less then you need to begin by focusing your business and its goals.

2. What are the key strengths of your business?

You want a straightforward and very honest assessment of your business’ strong points. If you can’t think of any strong points then that may be an area that needs attention.

3. What are the weaknesses or challenges of your business?

Take a step back from your business and look at it as if you were an outsider being asked to invest in your business. What would be some of your concerns?

4. What is unique about your business? Why would customers buy from you rather than from your competitor?

This is a vital question. If you can’t come up with a good, solid answer, then your customers may not be able to either.

5. Where would you like to see your business in the next 6 months? In one year? In five years?

In other words, do you have any kind of a marketing plan and are you following it?

6. What obstacles could be getting in the way of achieving your 6-month goals?

Don’t settle for obvious answers. Play Devil’s advocate and try to anticipate anything that could derail your efforts, and then try to find solutions.

7. What might be getting in the way of converting more prospects into customers?

Don’t be afraid to ask for the opinions of others when trying to answer this question; and, above all, demand honesty in your own answers as well as the answers of others.

8. What are you most passionate about and are these passions part of your business?

Does your passion come through in everything you do? If not, it will show in everything you do and eventually it will destroy your business. If you’re not passionate about this business, reflect back to why you went into business and rediscover that passion.

9. What marketing strategies are you using right now?

List everything you can think of; once you begin actively using Guerrilla Marketing techniques your list will skyrocket.

10. What is the most profitable part of your business and what is the least profitable?

Here’s where you need to break your business down into its basic components — something you may not have consciously done before — and then you must honestly compare the income and profitability of each component.

11. Do you have a strategy for following-up with prospects?

Follow-up is one of the cornerstones of making almost any small business really profitable. If you don’t have a workable strategy for follow-up, then you’re potentially leaving a lot of profit lying on the table.

How did you do?

If you answered all 11 questions about your business honestly and feel good about each answer, your business is probably setting on a strong foundation.

If you have concerns about any of these 11 vital points, it’s time for to seek the help and advice of experts who can help you put your business house in order. Your business success depends on it.

Six Step Checklist to Deliver Teleseminars
Chances are that you’ve attended a teleseminar lately. Why not create your own?

Teleseminar events are very easy to produce because all you have to do is send an email to your list and invite them to participate. These seminars by phone are easy to do and can be very profitable.

Wouldn’t it be great to offer your clients a teleseminar where they can learn your latest ideas, strategies, and expert information? I regularly do teleseminars for free so that I can build rapport, offer value, and maintain good relationships with my clients.

Here’s a simple checklist of what you need to have in place to get started delivering teleseminars:

1. In-demand topics.
Your information must meet a need in the marketplace for a specific group of people or a business. A compelling topic that provides solutions to a challenge or frustration that people are searching for answers to is a great place to start. That way, you can experience instant demand for your topic.

2. A format.
There are many formats for your teleseminars. They can be interviews, information delivery, Q&A calls, research based calls based on a survey or report, or some combination of these. Interactive teleseminars work well where people can either ask you a question or submit their question via email. That way, you can maintain their attention because they know their question will be answered.

3. A bridge line.
There are several good services, many of them free. My favorite right now is Free Conferencing Live Office. It’s the one I use and I do recommend it. It has a 250 person capacity, free audio recordings, and other great perks. You can record, publish and podcast your content and conference calls at no cost. Great Teleseminars provides production and administrative services for teleseminars. If you want operator assistance, Black and White Communications is a good choice.

4. An automated registration system.
I use Practice Pay Solutions, which is the 1Shopping Cart system, to automate my teleseminar registrations. I highly recommend it. It allows your participants to sign up either online at your website or by email, and then provides you with a list of people who have signed up. You can set up an autoresponder that goes out automatically when they sign up with the date and time of the call. It will also automatically send out reminders for you.

5. A way to record.
If you record your teleseminar, you’ll have an instant product. Post the audio file online at your website or with a company like Audio Acrobat or Hipcast. Then have the audio transcribed as a value-add to participants.

6. An effective way to follow up.
This is the strategy many people delivering teleseminars overlook. Once you have had the chance to share your expertise with new prospects, it’s a perfect time to send a follow up communication. Email them after the call with a summary of the notes, a link to the recording, and/or an invitation to your next event or program. Always have something else to invite them to. If you have automated your registration process, it will be easy for you to send a follow up email out after the call.

Now that you know how to offer and record teleseminars, conference calls, and telephone interviews, what are you waiting for? Good luck and enjoy!

Speak To Me! Educating Customers With Articles
For a small business owner trying to market online, it’s important to remember that the Internet is essentially a vast, multimedia learning tool. It’s like countless libraries, movie theaters, record stores, classifieds sections, and art museums all rolled into a single, dynamic entity, instantly accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Think about it — why do you surf the Internet? Sure, entertainment and commerce are major reasons, but even these are closely associated with learning. People who access the Internet for entertainment generally don’t seek out the same material they viewed the day before; no, they look for new material — that is, they want to learn something.

Meanwhile, most people who access the Internet to purchase products or to do business are not, at the outset, certain how they’re going to spend their money.

For example, a customer who wants to purchase a good novel uses the Internet to inform her decision; before making a purchase, she’ll surf through a variety of book-related websites, reading reviews, author biographies, and interviews. Only after comparing a variety of choices, and then comparing prices, will she decide what to buy. So, if you’re a contemporary novelist or publisher, it’s essential to use the Internet to spread the word about your work.

Whatever your business, the same principles apply. To succeed in online business, you must spread the word about your goods and services. You can’t rely upon search engines to bring customers to you — you’ve probably already noticed that search engines tend to favor larger companies in their results — and most customers are repelled by the usual forms of Web advertising.

In the above example, the customer choosing a novel doesn’t make her decision based on advertisements or sales pitches. Instead, she educates herself, and then makes a decision from a position of knowledge.

In this light, the small business owner who finds ways to actively contribute to the vast structure of online educational content will be at an advantage. By writing educational articles about topics in your field, you’ll not only teach your potential customers things they need to know, but you’ll also earn their respect, and thus lead them to your business.

It’s easy to distribute your original content throughout the Web. You simply need to sign up for an online article marketing service — which you can locate through Google — and submit articles. Then, the service will make your voice available to thousands of Web publishers in your field.

If your content is unique and educational, you’ll instantly earn the respect of your readers, who will then want to do business with you. In the “About the Author” section attached to your articles, they’ll find a description of what you do, and a link to your website. Soon after your article marketing service begins to work for you, you’ll find that you’re dramatically building site traffic.

For more information on how best to write, format, and structure your content, you’ll find resources on your article marketing service’s website. What’s important to remember is that your articles are only to be advertisements insofar as they draw customers to your website. Beyond that, you should tone down your marketing voice, and refrain from mentioning the name of your business. Instead, focus on making your articles as educational as possible. Forget the old advertising paradigms. Today, it’s simple: If you educate, customers will come.

As a side note, there is one more important benefit of this type of article marketing. As your articles are distributed throughout the Web, you’ll find your website rising in search engine results. This is because search engines rely upon “backlinking,” which is what happens when a website is accessed through an external link. So, thanks to article marketing, search engines will finally become relevant to your small business online marketing strategy.

Learning The Basics of Business Incorporation
Business incorporation is essential for developing and expanding your business. Incorporation saves you from many hassles. Business Corporation Act has made the incorporation process simpler and faster. You have to incorporate your business irrespective of it being a new or old business, profit, or nonprofit organization. Such incorporation accrues many benefits to you and your business too. Corporations formed could be for religious purposes, governmental or even function as quasi-governmental organizations.

Basics of Business Incorporation:

Incorporation gives a separate distinct identity to your business, completely different from the shareholders or owners. The assets and liabilities of your business and owners or shareholders are distinct. The company has a separate legal existence albeit it does not have a separate body or mind of its own.

The personal property of the shareholders is safe even in cases of settlement of dues of creditors or any other form of lawsuits. You are liable only to the extent of your investment in the business. Similarly, the company property is safe if you are into any personal lawsuits.

Business incorporation allows you to transfer your ownership easily, sometimes without any paperwork too. The credit ratings of the company are separate from that of the different shareholders of the company. Your personal poor credit rating does not affect your business in any way.

Applicable tax rate for your company is much lower than personal tax rates. Your company can carry forward any amount of losses into the next financial year.

The existence of your incorporated business does not suffer due to the death or incapacity of any partner, owner, or shareholder. Your business continues its existence as usual. This offers greater stability to the company and helps in extensive capital accumulation. Such accumulation is useful in investing in bigger projects and for longer time too.

Your company has to follow the incorporation laws and regulations of the respective province. Different provinces have their own sets of rules and regulations.

An incorporated company can own property, pay taxes, sign contracts, and function almost like a separate entity. However, a corporation cannot vote like a citizen. Besides, although the company has such basic incorporated rights, yet, it can function through a person only. Such authorized signatories and functionaries act and sign on behalf of the company.

A board of directors governs and manages all the activities of an incorporated business. These directors function on behalf of all the shareholders. Shareholders elect or in some cases select the directors.

Business incorporation offer easy solutions for retirement plans, insurance plans and premiums, and many other deductibles in your tax benefits.

Business incorporation necessitates formation of essential bylaws for functioning and working of the company. Shareholders decide on such laws though their voting powers at regular shareholder meetings.

If because of any reason, the incorporated company is to end its existence, it has to repay the dues of all creditors initially. It also has to settle all other liabilities before repaying any dues of the members or shareholders. A member is liable only to the extent of the amount of his contribution.

What’s In Your Marketing Plan? A Small Business Guide To Online Marketing
Many small business owners make the mistake of thinking, “If we make a website using a few keywords, search engine algorithms will guide customers to us.” But these days, everyone has a website, every website uses keywords, and it’s not difficult to hire web designers to create good-looking, perfectly functioning websites. Online marketing is becoming more difficult and more competitive, particularly for small business owners who seemingly can’t compete with huge companies in search engine results.

How does a small business generate hits to its website? Is it possible to use the Internet to increase your market size? If search engines persistently bury your website on page 12 of their search results, there are solutions.

Think about it — what are your potential customers looking for? Whatever your field, it’s likely that they’re looking for expertise, intelligence, and creativity. And your customers are discerning — they can tell when a marketing technique is phony — and the only reason they so often go with the bigger companies is a perceived lack of alternatives. Many small businesses, in an effort to attract customers, try to emulate the marketing practices of larger companies, thus neglecting to show their own, knowledgeable perspective.

So, how does a small business show that it’s not only more personalized and trustworthy than larger companies, but also smarter and more dynamic? You have to speak to your potential customers. You must show them that you have the brains, the ability, and the creativity to suit their unique needs, far better than larger companies can.

In the age of the Internet, there are few things that people respect more than a well-written, informative article. If you’re a small business owner, then there’s clearly at least one area in which you are more knowledgeable than anyone else. This is what makes you good at running your business — yet why not also use this knowledge to increase the size of your market?

If you search the Internet for “how article marketing works” you’ll find some very good article distribution services that can help you link your website in all corners of the Internet. There are thousands of websites that are always looking for fresh, informative content, and that would be pleased to publish your work.

First, though, you must write your article. Write it carefully, and make it informative; people love to learn new things. But remember, both publishers and readers can recognize a sales pitch, so don’t mention the name of your business unless it is truly integral to the content of your article.

The important thing is that each time an article of yours is published, it will come with an “About the Author” box, which will contain a link to your website. Everyone who learns something from your article will want to click on the link. Your article will be like a tease; they will seek more of what you have to offer on your website.

So start writing as soon as you can. And remember, after you sign up for an article marketing website, you’ll be asked to categorize the articles that you’ve written. Don’t do this hastily; think hard about the categories customers would associate with the services you offer.

If the service suggests revisions to your work, try not to be offended. They are experts, and to make the changes they suggest is in your own best interest. Your goal is to increase your market size. They want to help you do it. Trust them.

Few businesses are aware of this marketing tactic, so it’s best to take advantage of it while you can. With the millions of businesses now marketing on the web, it’s important for the small business owner to realize that to simply include a few keywords on your website is not enough anymore.

Plus, through article marketing, you can generate thousands of clicks to your website, which moves your website higher up in the rankings of search engines such as Google and Yahoo. By writing informative articles, and having them distributed throughout the Internet, you can work your way up to page 1 in the search results.

Small Business Assistant Services
As a small business owner it is understandable to sometimes feel as if you cannot compete with those larger conglomerates that also have larger financial resources available to them. But you can edge your profit margin ever closer to theirs and give them a good showing with sound business choices.

You may have to track your money a little harder than they do, but trust that they too have to track the flow of money in and out at some point. You can make a lesser budget work just as hard for you as if it were millions, if you do it right.

Keeping your employee ratio as low as possible so that you can avoid having to pay out large sums of what could be your businesses profits is one of those right moves. Such a suggestion may scare you. How will a number of office obligations be met if you do not have the employees to see that they are done? The budget savvy answer to that is to hire a small business assistant for the office services you would normally have to pay an employee to perform.

A small business assistant typically works off site in their own office, using telephone and internet connected computer to communicate with you and to contract assisting services to you. In some cases however, if your business is located near the business assistant, on site assisting is often possible. Do not confuse a business assistant who is able to provide you with on site assisting with one of your employees. These highly skilled business assistants contract for work you outsource to them even if they perform some or all of them inside your business, but they are not employees of your small business. On the other hand, do not assume that just because a professional business assistant is an independent vendor that they will not maintain a professional image and conduct while on your company site. They are professionals like you and know the importance of being professional at all times.

We would need another article to name all of the services provided by a business assistant to help the small business owner save money and get ahead. But we will mention as many of the service you could outsource to a business assistant as possible.

There are a plethora of marketing services that a business assistant can provide. From the creation of brochures, business cards, flyers, newsletters, and content articles for you to place on your business site. Online marketing, direct mailings, Geo farming, translation, lead follow up, website customization and SEO, and blog development are a few more of the services you can elect to outsource to a business assistant to meet your business marketing goals.
Management and office support services often include software customization, research, word processing, database and client care management, scheduling of appointments, data entry, merge mailing, and calendar updating, An on site business assistant can provide you with many office organization and management services.

You can get many of the services that those big execs pay heavily for at substantially lower rates from a professional business assistant, and that is what doing it right is all about. Event, meeting, and travel planning and if you are within the service area, personal shopping and errand services are made available. These services offer you the executive treatment without an executive price tag attached.

Use your resources wisely and they will work as hard for you as if you were a large conglomerate with unlimited capitol to play with. Give those big guys a good showing of what you can do by making sound business choices such as outsourcing for your business assisting needs and making other sound business choices.

Search Engines

Why MSN Won’t Make It as a Search Engine
MSN has been continually losing what little footing they had as a search engine. Every month their search engine market share percentage decreases by a percentage or two. You wouldn’t think that was much except that if the trend continues, they’ll have 0 market share before the end of the year.

So as big as MSN is, you would think they would be able to come up with some incredible fix to this fairly large problem. MSN thinks so too. They have hired new people to come up with something totally new that no one has ever seen before. That’s great and I’m all for it, but the problem with this solution to the problem is that building something “new” doesn’t fix the real problem. The problem is Google. People want Google. People use Google. Anyone who is anyone uses Google as their search engine, Not MSN. As far as I’m concerned, the only people who use MSN (on a consistent basis) are the people who don’t know how to change their default homepage in Internet Explorer. Am I right? And it’s not that MSN is a terrible search engine. In fact, it’s very up to par. The problem is, it’s only up to par. It’s not better than Google or Yahoo and so no one who uses either of those search engines is going to switch over to MSN. So why isn’t their market share at least stying dormant? Because who doesn’t want to use the best search engine?

You see MSN, Google has already filled the “best search engine” quota. Everyone knows it and unless Google really messes up somehow, they will continue to fill the “best search engine” quota forever. And knowing Google, they’re not going to mess that up. In fact, there has been recent worry that with all of the acquiring Google is doing in so many different areas, they have stopped focusing on search. However, an official Google representative, Matt Cutts, debauches that theory by saying that their search team just continues to grow and more and more people are devoted to improving it’s quality every day. You just don’t hear about that because that’s not interesting news. The interesting news is the acquisitions that Google has been making and how much money they are spending on buying out these already large companies. So everyone hears that news and the news of increasing quality, relevancy, and functionality of the search engine is smothered out.

So, I hope that whatever “new” thing MSN comes up with is really “new” and by “new” I mean something that can fill a new best-of, because the search engine best-of has already been filled. Good Luck MSN. I hope you don’t continue to try and fill the void that is no more a void and hasn’t been for a few years now. I know you’ll try anyway, and you’ll probably keep trying after all of your failed attempts. You’ll spend millions and millions of dollars just to slam your head against a brick wall. And will you eventually stop? Probably not, and probably because millions and millions of dollars won’t even make a dent in the company’s pocket.

So what does this have to do with Search Engine Optimization? Well there are a few good reasons why this topic is a legitimate SEO topic. First, if you know that MSN is not going to make it as a search engine, then you don’t need to optimize your site for them. Instead focus on the big search engines such as Google and Yahoo and the up and coming search engines like Ask. Second, knowing the reasons behind why MSN isn’t going to make it as a search engine should help you to realize why you are or are not going to make it in your industry. Think about your competition. Is there anyone in your industry who you think really dominates the industry? Is there any particular company you think would be classified by the majority of people as “the best” in the industry? If not, that void needs to be filled. Go for it yourself! However, if you said yes, don’t do what MSN is trying to do by trying to push a mountain out of their way. Instead, narrow your industry and become more niche so that you can be the best in that niche. Learn from others mistakes. Believe me, it’s the easy route.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Rules For Better SEO
The search engine rules change constantly when it comes to linking with other sites etc. If you can pay some money there are many websites on the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. But given that both of these areas require considerable amounts of time and money (not to mention writing), it seems strange to ignore the other key method of finding favour with Google & co - namely search engine optimization copywriting.

As I was performing research for how to gain exposure for my websites, I ran into many Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. Without a doubt one of the largest things to hit the Internet today is the number of SEO “Search Engine Optimization” sites popping up all over the place.

Search engine optimization is the use of tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Achieving top ranking in the search engines through effective search engine optimization is like free advertising and can create hundreds or thousands of dollars of potential income if you can monetize your site effectively.

Finding a good source for continually submitting to the search engines and keeping track of rankings and link popularity is a very important factor in having long term success with search engine optimization. Internal link structure of your site is another important factor for good search engine rankings, Search engines like the internal structure to be theme based to determine the relevancy of a site. Achievable search engine optimization is a highly effective way for website owners to improve the traffic to their site or increase their profits and should not be overlooked in the overall strategy to get to the top page for your selected keywords.

The most important part of search engine optimization is selecting the right keywords and keyword phrases to use in optimizing your web site. While On Page Optimization can be a significant reason why your web site ranks well in the search engine there are many other key factors like, page content, link popularity, site indexing and competition. Depending on the complexity of a web site, a search engine compatibility review may be needed before you can accurately provide an overview for the full search engine optimisation of your site.

Keep in mind that a high search engine rank will produce a measurable increase in traffic only if there is a significant marketplace interest in what you are selling and your website appears in the first twenty search engine results. However, search engine optimization is not going to produce measurable results if there is very little demand for the product or service you offer. The goal of search engine optimization is about creating a web site that reaches the first page of the search results for the particular keywords or keyword phrases you are targeting and so there is no point being the number 1 site in a topic that has no link back to what you do or offer.

There is two types of website optimization, one is to maximize website performance, and the other is for internet presence and visibility through natural listings on search engines, using meta tags of descriptions and keywords to give specific instructions for search engines spiders and robots. Regardless of which way you choose to get higher rankings for your website, remember the main meaning of Search Engine Optimization, and think realistically of how your website separates you with the competition because after all thats what you are trying to achieve here is to beat the competition, not the search engine.

Themed Links Quality and Seo
This article will explain the importance of link quality, and its application to link building. Everyone may have a different understanding of what “quality” is on terms of links, but essentially that is your decision entirely. If you have an existing site, that you need to build links for, use this as a reference check list to ensure that you are link building properly. I am going to review the key 6 areas. Let’s start:

Is the page linking to you indexed in Google and is the cache version fresh?
Why is this essential? Google has a cached page of any indexed page on their index. So basically, this should be your starting point for any link partnership decision. You need to verify that the page the link partner is proposing for exchange, is actually indexed and that the cached version is of the page is fresh in their records, within 20 days old as a benchmark. This will show that the page in question gets crawled often. PageRank of the page is secondary in comparison to this primary check.

Is the page linking to you on topic? Is this a themed link?
There is a big difference between the types of links you can get. These type of link are very targeted and carry a lot more weight over generic or unrelated links. This is part of what explains why some sites with much less links that their direct competitors are able to outrank them for particular terms. Quality links from themed sources is the main reason for that. Focusing on just “popularity” and inadvertently ignoring “reputation” is a mistake a lot of search marketers make.

Is the Title tag of the page linking to you on-topic? What about the text?
The title tag of the page linking to you is of great importance. When that is combined with text that is on topic with the page which is being link from, and other factors, the link value is increased greatly for the link. So as you can understand from this, is that co-relation of these factors makes a better link.

Where is your link on the page located? Navigation, gutter, footer, body?
Location of your link is another strong factor to consider. The most beneficial location is considered to be within the body area of content. Any repetitive areas like navigation, gutter, footer, etc would normally not carry as much weight as the main body area. “Run-of-site” links fall into this group. There is a preference for the first paragraph, but the middle or bottom within body content are also good.

How many other links are on the page? Home Page vs. Link Page PR gap?
PageRank gets automatically diluted in relation to the amount of links on the page.
Google guidelines currently suggest a maximum of 100 links per page. So here you
want to make sure the number is as small as possible. I recommend targeting 20 links per page maximum on average to have room to allow those pages link growth. Also, what is the difference between the main page PR and the subpage were you are getting the link from? In the best cases, your link will be one point under the home page value. If it isn’t, you can consider other options with your link partner.

Search Engine Common Sense
In the first part of the series, I wish to ensure we discuss the importance of a solid foundation. When starting any SEO campaign it is tempting to leap straight in and start tweaking meta tags and changing text. However, like any successful marketing strategy, it is vital to ensure that you know whom your audience is and how to reach them. In the same way traditional advertising agencies survey their demographic audience, search engine marketers must ensure that their SEO campaign targets the correct keywords or search phrases. Target the wrong search phrase and you could end up with great search engine rankings for keywords that have no search requests. A few hours now spent ensuring that the correct search phrases are targeted, can save months of useless optimization.

Brainstorm

When you started your company or developed your products, you no doubt sat down with your friends, relatives and business partners and discussed the needs of your target audience. You would have been foolish to stubbornly press ahead with your products without first testing the market to see if there was a demand. Likewise, when you start out on your SEO campaign it is important to brainstorm search phrases that are likely to bring qualified visitors to your website. Sit down with your co-workers and business partners and discuss which keywords are relevant to the products and services you offer. Compile an initial list of 5-10 search phrases that you feel best represent your company and which you believe people would type into a search engine when trying to find you. Consider the following factors when brainstorming:

* Is your audience likely to search for industry standard terms or simple layman phrases?
* Which of your products are in stock? There is no point targeting search phrases that are popular if you don’t actually stock that item.
* Which products have the highest profit margin? If you had just a $0.20 mark-up on a very popular product, could you sell enough online to make a profit? A product that is less searched but has a higher profit margin would be easier to obtain a search engine ranking and would yield higher revenues.
* Identify your biggest competitors. View competitor websites and see which products they appear to target; which search phrases do they have rankings for?

Make use of any PPC data

Chances are, your decision to begin a SEO campaign is fueled by your desire to reduce costly pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. While reliance on PPC will be reduced with a good SEO campaign, you can make use of your current PPC efforts when researching your search phrases to target. Analyze your PPC keywords and look to see which of them have brought the highest traffic levels, best click through rates and greater sales conversions. It is likely a search phrase that brought successful results through a PPC campaign will be very relevant in your quest to obtain top search engine positioning.

Expanding your Keyword list

Once you have completed your brainstorming and have compiled your list of 5-10 core keywords, it’s time to move on and expand that list. A list of 5-10 search phrases will not, as I am sure you will know, bring the amount of search engine traffic needed to make your website successful. However, that list will be a vital tool when determining which phrases to add to the mix. At this point, you need to turn to the search engines themselves and research which search phrases are actually being typed into Google, Yahoo, MSN et. While few search engines will openly tell you which search phrases are the most often searched, there are a couple of very useful tools you can use to expand your list.

The first and most well known, is the Overture Search Suggestion Tool. This great little research tool is primarily for the use of Overture PPC users and if you have ever endeavored on a PPC campaign with Overture, you will no doubt have come across it. Take any of your main search phrases and enter them into the suggestion tool. Overture will then spit out all other popular search terms that contain that phrase. In addition, Overture will place the search phrases in order of popularity and give you an idea of the number of searches per month for each phrase across their network. While this tool can be very useful, especially as it is free to use, it does have some key drawbacks. First, it does not differentiate between singular and plural search phrases. Consequently, “desktop computer” and “desktop computers” are combined together, leaving you to use your own judgment as to which variation is the most popular. For many search phrases, you can take an educated guess as to which one is likely to be the most searched, but often you will be left without a clue as to whether to target the singular or plural. Secondly, the Overture Suggestion Tool does not handle punctuation very well, preferring to ignore it completely. Thus “kid’s toys”, “kid’s toys”, “kid-toys”, “kid’s toy” would all be shown as “kid toy”. Again, this never used to be a big problem, but go to Google and search for each of these phrases and you will see different results for each one.

If you are serious about your SEO campaign, you will consider a subscription to WordTracker to be a worthwhile investment. Starting at just $7 a day, with discounts all the way up to one year of service, WordTracker offers a similar type of research tool as Overture but with many more bells and whistles. The biggest advantage with WordTracker is that is uses Meta-Crawlers when sourcing search phrase frequencies. This eliminates inflated search phrase frequencies from Overture users checking their own rankings and thus artificially increasing the popularity of certain phrases. In addition WordTracker offers the following advantages:

* Offers a “thesaurus” and “lateral” search. Allowing you to view search phrases that are related to your main search term, but not necessarily containing that term.
* Shows search frequencies for both singular and plural phrases; allowing you to determine which is the most popular.
* Identifies which form of punctuation is the most popular.
* Allows you to place your targeted keywords into a “shopping basket” so that you can analyze all of your phrases together.
* Has an exclusive KEI analyzer that allows you to compare the popularity of the search phrase with the number of websites competing for that keyword.

Determining Competition

Once you have identified possible additions to your search phrase list, you must research further to determine if there is a good chance you will achieve your prized top search engine ranking or if the competition for that phrase is already saturated. While it can be tempting to target only search phrases that are very popular and searched hundreds of thousands of times in a single month, you must also consider the likelihood of you being able to obtain a ranking higher enough to capitalize on all of that great traffic. Many, many search terms are so saturated by competitors that it would be highly unlikely that you would achieve a high enough ranking to reward your efforts. Therefore, it is often worthwhile considering those search phrases that may not have quite the same level searches each month, but likewise do not have as many websites targeting that term.

WordTracker’s KEI (keyword effectiveness index) allows it’s users to analyze their chosen search phrases to determine the level of competition for that phrase. WordTracker has a great explanation on their website as to how to use this index, but in summary it provides a numerical scale for identifying the popularity of a keyword compared to the number of competitors targeting that phrase.

For those of you on a strict budget and opting to use Overture for keyword research, there is an alternative answer. Enter each identified search phrase at Google, using quotations around the phrase (e.g. “discount computers”). Google will then display the search results for all pages that target that phrase exactly as entered. View the top right, blue navigation bar and you will see the number of results Google matched. This number represents the total number of web pages that Google has identified as targeting that exact search phrase. This number represents your competition or your very own KEI. Make a note of this number for each of your identified search phrases and pretty soon you will be able to see which of your search phrases have the most competition and which have less competitors and therefore a better chance of obtaining top ranking.

Selecting Your Keywords

By now, you should have an expanded list of search phrases to target, taken from either Overture or WordTracker. In addition, you should also have a good idea as to the competition for each of those keywords, whether you used the KEI or Google format. Now is the time to start selecting the search phrases that will form the foundation for a successful SEO campaign. Ok, deep breath, we’re almost there.

When selecting the keywords to target, there are many factors you must take into consideration. You will no doubt have your own unique considerations, but you must also take into account the following:

* Is the search phrase relevant to your website and the page that you are optimizing?
* Is there a page within your website that would be particularly suitable for targeting the selected search phrase?
* How many other websites/web pages would you be competing against?
* Do you offer competitive pricing for the product or service that relates to the keyword?
* Will top search engine ranking for the search phrase generate enough revenue for your company?

Arranging Keywords into Themes

Once you have asked yourself the above questions, it will become easy to narrow down your list to the main search phrases that you wish to target. When doing so, remember that you should not try and target every selected search term on your index page. Your index page is the most important page of your website and likely to have the best positioning on the search engines, therefore choose 5-10 search phrases to target here and ensure that they are all closely related. Trying to target “desktop computers” and “dvd players” on your index page will get you top rankings for neither. Instead, identify the pages within your website that target those particular keywords and use those instead. The key to selecting keywords to target for each page is to think of “themes”. Each page should ideally target just one theme. This will assist you in making sure that the targeted page is relevant to the selected search phrase. In turn, this will not only increase your chances of obtaining top rankings, but also increase your customer sales conversions by bringing the visitor to the most relevant page.

In summary

When researching search phrases and targeting keywords for your SEO campaign, it is important to follow the steps above. Research your industry, talk to your potential customers and make use of the themes within your website. In addition, consider these final tips:

* Determine the intent of the visitor Thoroughly research all search terms to ensure that the searcher intended to find your product or service. E.g. reconsider targeting the keyword “DVD” if you store only sells blank DVD discs, the chances are the searcher intended to find DVD movies rather than blank media.
* Don’t always rely on the numbersBoth Overture and WordTracker use historical date when displaying search phrase frequencies and neither archive more than two months back. Therefore you must know your industry and account for any seasonal or other trends. E.g. the search phrase “red roses” will be more popular for Valentines than at Christmas.
* Look for opportunities Identify the search phrases that have been untapped by your competitors. Some search terms may have slightly fewer searches, but may have dramatically fewer competitors.
* Target the right pages This cannot be stressed enough. Do not try and target every keyword on every page. Identify themes within your website and group relevant search phrases around those pages. You will see much better results

I hope you have found the above useful. This series is designed to help the beginner, but I hope a few experienced SEO marketers will find something fresh to consider. In the next installment of this series, we will look at the use of Meta Tags. These once champions of SEO have recently taken a battering, but are still extremely important for the success of any campaign. We’ll look at how they are used, how to construct them and why they can help achieve top search engine rankings. In the meantime, you should have enough information to assist you in your search phrase research and build the foundation for a successful search engine optimization campaign.

Do SEO yourself? Or Hire an outside Firm?
Businesses that are active on the world wide web, no matter how great or small, are beginning to realize the necessity of search engine optimization. As with almost all things Internet related, however, their are a number of considerations to be made which can affect the level of success they achieve. One of the biggest areas of concern is how to go about finding the best solution for optimizing a web presence.

For small businesses and individuals, there are a number of free resources on the web that, with minimal consulting and a lot of time invested, can help produce effective results. SEO isn’t rocket science after all, but one has to be marginally adept at understanding the principles behind it in order to properly optimize even the smallest and simplest of sites. SEO free resources, depending on the source, are generally good primers for the small business owner, though consulting should come into play after the initial optimization effort is underway. Free resources are free for a reason.

The reason is that they seldom offer the finite details necessary to rank well for competitive terms, which makes consulting services a bargain for the small business owner as they put the last pieces of the optimization puzzle into place. This is, at least in theory, how many small business owners achieve decent rankings for their site. The reality, though, is that few have the time to perform the work necessary to rank well. From keyword research, content, Meta tags and back link development to reporting and adjustment of multiple parameters, SEO is a time consuming endeavor. For this reason, most small business owners hire firms to perform their optimization as putting someone on the payroll full time isn’t an expenditure that falls within their budget.

For mid-sized companies all the way up to large corporations, there are two options: hire someone in-house or contract with an SEO firm. Companies tend to lean toward hiring in-house SEO’s for two main reasons. The first is the reduced cost of services and the second is that they gain the false sense of having better control over their optimization efforts. The first reason is valid, as many SEO firms are really SEM firms in disguise, and want to treat optimization as though it should be a perpetual, ongoing investment like PPC. They want to contract businesses for extended lengths of time with outlandish penalties for opting out early. They also tend to charge exorbitant monthly or bi-weekly fees that might lead some clients to guess if they are paying an expensive Manhattan or downtown L.A. mortgage. Not all SEO firms operate this way, however, and finding one to suit your needs and budget can be accomplished with a little searching.

As for companies having the false sense of better control over their optimization efforts, this is simply a holdout from the traditional business model that doesn’t stand up to the information age we live in. Hiring an SEO in-house because you feel that having him or her at arms length is an advantage is akin to setting up a kitchen in your office so that you can have more access to food preparation than ordering takeout can provide. The problems is that , like large scale food preparation, SEO requires a team effort. A souse chef is not a baker any more than an SEO guru is a content writer, developer, programmer, designer or submission specialist.

This is why competent firms will always be able to provide far better service than an in-house individual. Staying on top of changes to search engine algorithms, setting and adjusting Meta tags, designing search engine friendly navigation, writing well optimized content and building back links through multiple means is simply not possible for one individual working 9 to 5, or 24 hours a day for that matter.

Website Content - Important For Your Website
As with any commercial venture, the nature of the game is to make money. Websites are no different and there are many ways to generate income from your online presence. Unless you are a well known and well established retail merchant, you will need to find a way to have users come to your website and (hopefully) purchase something through your advertisements. Whether you have your own product, utilize affiliate marketing or furnish pay per click advertisements, you need some bait to draw your potential customers to your site.

The adage “Content is King” is very true on the world wide web. Without articles and information to present to people searching the web for things that interest them, they would simply move on to the next site. There are several ways in which you can fill your website with information to hold your user’s attention.

The first option many newcomers take is to write their own content or hire someone to ghostwrite the information for them. This will work well if you are articulate and can present your information in an easily understood form. If you are hiring someone to write the information for you, the cost of putting together a decent sized website can stretch a new webmaster’s budget.

Another way to fill your pages with information is by using article directories. These websites are designed as repositories of articles on a multitude of subjects that you can pick and choose as you will to put on your own website. The advantages to using article directories is that you can quickly add content to your site that will be of interest to your viewers. The downside to using article directories is that for one, you cannot change the articles at all. These articles are provided as a service and either the author or the directory site retains the copyright.

Directory articles are provided free, but have hyperlinks to the author’s own websites imbedded in the byline information at the bottom of the article. This provides the person who furnished the article an extra back link to their site which aids them in increasing their rating with the search engines.

A third option lies somewhere in between these two choices. A growing number of web companies offer article packs grouped into specific niche interests. These collections of articles are sold with “Private Label Rights”. This means you can do whatever you want with them. You may put them on your site and attach your own byline. You can resell them to others and most importantly, you are permitted to edit and modify them to include your own unique details and information. This is the preferred method of utilizing these private label articles.

Most of the major search engines will discover and assign a lower ranking to webpages that have duplicate copy on them. In order to work your website toward the first pages of a search engine result you will need among other things, to keep your content as unique as possible. A packet of private label articles will generally cost less than if you had to hire someone to produce your content for you. The simple task of modifying the articles for your website can give you the satisfaction of being a part of your site’s development. With just a little effort you can take the basic articles you bought this way and turn them truly into your own creation.

The Eight Things You Must Do To Optimize Your Site For Search Engines - Missed By Over 98.4%
Search engines are better at spidering than you. Of course, you need a professional looking site, easy to navigate, appropriate content and size. Many webmasters and sites are great at displaying graphics (flash) and visually appealing sections on their sites. However, the search engines really don’t care much about that. If you can give the spiders what they want, they not only will eat it up fast, but you will provide content-rich, relevant data to their index (database). As time, content, size and relevancy increase, you will rise up in the search engine results pages. Properly applied search engine optimization techniques and online marketing principles will help you.

The 3 most important search engines to optimize for are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. (Ed Note: Google owns over 50% of the market today, and is growing fast every day. This includes their exposure via partners like Ask, Earthlink, DogPile, etc). For you to get elevated and relevant rankings you must get into the search engine indexes, and we recommend you start with Google. You should get spidered by Google in less than 3 weeks if applied correctly, but a long term approach to SEO work is needed. You can expect to see your listing within 2-4 months for some pages, and as much time as 2 years for certain keywords/phrases within those.

I invite you to take a look at the starter list below. These are steps you can start today and it is fairly easy and impactful.

Number 1: Learn the SEO concepts.
SEO tries to ensure that your web pages appear at the top of the search engines for target keyword requests. It increases brand awareness, qualified traffic and revenue. Fact: Only 1/2 of the people visiting look at the sponsored (paid) ads (PPC) and only 20% of those actually click. However, 4 out of 5 total clicks - apply their mouse on natural search results. Therefore SEO done right can really elevate your business visibility and revenue. Additionally, the top 5 sites returned from any search are where the action is. Your goal? You should be in the top 10 (Search Engines Results Pages (SERPS)) for your selected keywords.

Number 2: Research the competition.
I am sure you do this no matter what business you are in - whether online or not (brick and mortar). If not, this is one of the big steps missed by online businesses. There are techniques on how to do this effectively, quickly and with high quality results.

Number 3: Linking Strategies and Relevancy.
One of the most important things you can do is to build out your relevant linking neighborhoods. There are a number of great tools you can use to automate this, but we have found that via email and the phone (we are amazed by how many do not use the phone) — you will establish a closer relationship with your virtual partners, and even though you may only spend an hour a day building link partners, it is well spent. Typically, only 1-2 will exchange links with you out of 8 companies called. However, let us say you get one quality link per day through the year. That is over 300 quality links that will help your relevancy, build your business and get your PR(Page Rank) level moved up.

Number 4: Proper HTML and Site Building.
There are many articles written on this topic. If you are not HTML-savvy, it can be a challenge. However, it is not hard to learn, and many tools are available. Just search for free website design tools. Other SEO tools can analyze your content, HTML syntax and appropriate application of tags like TITLE, H1, META tags, BODY content and more. You must also make notes of server-side issues, including IP numbers that may have belonged to (and still do) block listed ranges.

Number 5: Meet The Search Engines.
Make sure you read the webmasters guidelines on all the search engines, especially Google, Yahoo and MSN. They actually are very helpful, and they want you to do well, contrary to what you believe or have heard. Also, keep in mind, there are robotic search engines, algorithmic based search engines and AI-type search engines - different styles of writing. Additionally, you must include listings in the directories, like DMOZ (free, but takes weeks to get listed), Yahoo (free, months - or paid, immediate). Lastly, you must study and learn the PPC (pay-per-click) strategies, learn how to write ads, copy writing for (cash) landing pages, and implement a solid back-end sales process. If you have never used the AdSense programs, you may be missing out on *significant* income, but many do it incorrectly. We have seen adsense programs go from $3.00/day to over $19,000/month.

Number 6: Use a proven methodology.
None of the SEO “white hat” (opposite: “black hat” - unethical) strategies are rocket-scientists-qualified only. The key areas to keep working on are: a) keyword research, b) competitive analysis, c) analyze your own site(s), d) submit your site(s), e) monitor rankings, f) Reporting, g) link development and h) dynamic site mapping. This approach works, and used by many of the professional SEO companies in the industry.

Number 7: Learn how to use the SEO tools.
Metaphor: For many home-owners, the worst thing that can happen when approaching any project, large or small - is not having your tool belt attached. Even worse, if there are tools missing from that belt after spending 15 minutes retrieving the ladder, lining it up just right, then scaling it just to get to the top of the roof — you not only feel aggravated, but plain stupid.

Being affiliated with some of the guru-type tools & specialists in the industry is nice, but most people are not. Therefore, free tools are a good place to start (search for seo tools and seo email courses). These will help you get to work immediately, and you don not have to come down off the roof to get them.

Number 8: Relevancy, Relevancy, Relevancy. Why be “search relevant”?
The objective here is to make the search engines “see”. You must always ensure that you insert unique relevant content such that the page becomes more worthy of a high ranking in the search engines. You must also make sure you adhere to Style Guide Requirements. The ultimate objective is not to make an inferior page appear superior, but to actually make it superior. Yes, you must be relevant - for any site - be it a commerce/shopping type site, to an information page about Da Vincis life (and, if you have something to sell, that is great). Do not try any uncommon tricks, especially not for the search engines. You will regret it. There are too many sad stories of revenues and business lost from “black hat” strategies (cloaking, spamdexing, link farms). They appear to work for a little while, and suddenly you are gone from the listings and not easily turned around. Be relevant and ethical. It may take a little longer, but you will win out in the end.

Mapping Your Way to a Good HTML Site Map
Ever wondered what site maps are for?

In any internet marketing endeavor, the best thing to do is to maintain a good linkage and to always stay indexed. There many ways available to you online to have your web site indexed and spidered. Using HTML site maps is a way you can utilize to make sure that your site is up to date in the internet and search engine database.

What is a site map?

A site map basically is a page that features or lists the links you have on your web site. This will make it easier for search engines to proceed and spider your web site. It is usually found near the bottom page of a web site.

Why are site maps important?

An HTML site map is important. It should contain the top level pages. In one page, there should be just about the right amount of links in it. The link should not exceed 100 for more favorable views.

There are certain benefits in having a good HTML sitemap. This generally would assure any potential customer to easily navigate the site, find exactly what they came to look for. The site map page will serve as a tool for your visitors. This way they will opt to visit your site more if they can easily browse and find their way in your web site. It can also ensure that your visitors can very well stay in your web site.

Good links will also ensure you that spiders will locate your web site easily each week. This will make your site indexed by the important search engines online. This will also avoid your site from being dropped.

However, HTML site maps may serve more important purpose than merely as another link to click on. The specific purpose you should consider in having a site map is to make it easier for search engine robots to “crawl” in your web site. Pages are located by search engines through “crawling.” It is a process that goes through the index of a page, following the links and adding the pages to the database.

The problem would come in when search engines fail to locate the page because links are not that accessible. It is the site map that will address this dilemma. Search engines will be given access to the different links in your web site simply by following the site map in your home page.

Here are some important pointers in creating your HTML site map.
1. Get tutorials on how to make your site map. There are available pages online that can give you a step-by-step guide in coming up with a good website.

2. You can also ensure that your site map looks good, to make it more pleasing to the eye of your visitor and to make navigation easier. You can get ideas for a properly designed site map online too.

3. Make sure that your site map will provide also the links to the important pages in your web site. This way your visitors will not get lost. At the same time you can ensure that your guests will still be able to get the general idea of your web site structure. It is advisable that you make links as simple as possible.

4. Make the link to your site map as visible and obvious as possible in your homepage. Visitors should not spend too much time in locating it or else you might end up losing them.

5. A site map serves more like a table of contents of your website. It should provide all of the different sections of your internet site with all the information and data that may be found in each section.

6. Each of the contents in your site map must have a hyperlink to its respective URL.

7. If you will have to give way to numerous links, you can make use of several pages. You could numbers each site-map page or you could also make use of the contents in naming each site-map.

Having an HTML site map will furthermore help you in maximizing traffic to your web site. Just make sure that your homepage as well all the internal pages are properly indexed. Creating a site map will definitely make things more efficient for you. The links to all the pages in your website will be directly connected to your homepage.

Aim high for your internet marketing endeavors. The more links you have to your site, the higher is the possibility of getting a good rank among the major search engines, so don’t hesitate to learn the rules of the game and make yourself a sure winner.

Bid Directories: An Exciting New Way to Buy Text Links
Bid-for-position web directories, or simply “bid directories”, are an exciting new way to buy text links. As the name suggests these directories allow site owners and visitors to bid for a higher position in the listings. Traditional web directories, by contrast, list links by some predetermined criterion, such as alphabetical order, Google PageRank, listing date, and so on. Bid directories allow people not only to bid for a top position but also to increase their bids as needed to maintain the position.

Why buy text links? A site without links is like a business in the middle of nowhere. Links are the electronic roads that connects your site with the rest of the world. If “location, location, location” is the mantra for a building a successful brick-and-mortar business, then “links, links, links” should be one for a successful website. Besides being a source for direct traffic, text links help drive traffic to a site indirectly by increasing a site’s rankings in search engine results.

Although natural links, i.e. links placed voluntarily by other webmasters to your site, are preferable to purchased ones, it may not be practical to rely on natural links alone, especially for a commercial site that competes with countless others offering similar products and services. Unless your site is truly unique and useful to people, a category to which most sites do not belong, buying links may be your best option to increase your link popularity.

The rules for buying text links on bid directories are similar to those on other sites. Simply put, you should buy links in a way that simulates natural linking. Your link profile looks more natural when your inbound links come from directories with a range of Google PageRanks (PR). Although there is natural tendency to target only high-PR directories, a link on a promising new bid directory, which may or may not have a PageRank, can be a good investment down the line. Besides, PR means nothing to other search engines, including Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL.

Perhaps the most important factor for deciding whether or not to buy a link on a certain bid directory is how aggressively it is marketed. The first question to ask is, how many other sites link to the directory in question? But marketing goes beyond the sheer number of inbound links. The next question to ask is, where are the links are coming from? You can get an idea of a site’s link profile by checking your backlinks on Yahoo!. While inbound links from competing bid directories is certainly one way to build links to the directory, it should not be the only way. The directory’s links look more natural when they come from diverse sources, including article directories, social bookmarking sites, blogs, and forums.

The Google PageRank of a directory is often a good indicator of how aggressively it is marketed, but PR could also be one of deception. For instance, an unscrupulous webmaster might replace the content of an existing PR-7 site with a potentially more lucrative bid directory and market it as a “PR-7 bid directory”. A tell-tale sign that this has occured is when the domain name of the directory has nothing to do with web directories or search engines. Another good sign is when its category subpages are PR-0 or do not have PRs at all. That is not even to mention the many ways bogus PRs might be obtained.

Most bid directories are made from commercially available scripts customized to the siteowners’ tastes. The level of customization is indicative of the directory owner’s effort to stand out from the crowd and often their commitment to do whatever it takes to make their site succeed. So, all else being equal, it’s better to go with a bid directory with a highly customized design than one that looks like a hundred others.

Many bid directories categorize links alphabetically by the first letters of their titles, as a telephone book lists people’s names. These directories are not particularly useful to visitors looking for sites on a particular topic, say gardening. Visitors should not have to click on every letter from A through Z to find sites pertaining to gardening. Considerable time would be saved if the sites were categorized by topic, e.g. “Home and Garden”, rather than the first letter of their titles. More importantly, links that are grouped with others of similar content are viewed as more relevant by the search engines than those grouped with unrelated sites. As an advertiser, you’ll get more for your money from a directory that sifts sites into topical categories than one that uses alphabetical categories– all else being equal.

Let me end this article with a word of caution. While bid directories should be a part of your link building campaign, don’t put all your eggs in one basket by relying too heavily on them. There is a bit of a novelty factor in bid directories, and no one knows whether they will set a new trend in advertising or eventually die down as another fad.