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Featured Article |
| Are Your Financial Decisions Becoming Stale? Here are 3 Fresh Tools to Help! |
Profitable financial decisions are the very life-blood of vibrant businesses. These decisions can cover asset replacement/repair options, investment choices, advertising options, business directions, new product development and introduction and innovative work practices. These decisions all have a positive or negative impact on the viability and health of the business. Would your business be more successful if your decisions were freshened up?
There are many tools advertised to assist managers make better decisions. One of the most efficient ways to make a positive impact on tired decisions is to develop more options. More options will definitely help you make better decisions since you have more choices available. The 3 tools listed below are some of the most popular and easy to use.
Are you ready? Let's do it.
Fresh Tool #1. Random Input
This is the simplest of all creative thinking techniques. It is widely used by advertising agencies, new product teams, rock groups, playwrights, IT developers and many others. This tool was developed by Dr. Edward De Bono in 1968 but has been plagiarized and borrowed since then, often by folks who don't really know how to use it.
One way to use this technique is to compile a list of 60 words (e.g. tiger, nose, hamburger, plane, molecule, rubbish, dog, shoes etc). When you need a random word glance at your watch and note the seconds reading. Use that number to get a word from your list. We then use one of these words that has no connection with the situation and hold them both together. The mind is very powerful at linking these seemingly unconnected ideas together.
In Dr. De Bono's book "Serious Creativity" he offers the following illustration:
"Cigarette" linked with "Traffic Light". "Within a few seconds this led to the idea of printing a red band around a cigarette some distance from the butt end. This band would serve as a 'danger zone'. If you stopped smoking before you reached the band, your smoking would be safer (because the last part of the cigarette is more harmful)."
This also led to the idea of putting seeds in the butt of the cigarette so that when it was thrown away in a garden or park, flowers would grow out of the butt end.
Do you feel that you have completely run out of ideas and your usual ways no longer work well? Does it seem impossible to get new ideas? Put in a random word and it will open up new lines of thought immediately.
Fresh Tool #2. Six Thinking Hats
This is another of Dr. De Bono's tried and tested methods. Again, it is extremely simple, but powerful. This method has been used by IBM, Prudential, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph and many other businesses world-wide.
The theory is as follows:
The Six Thinking Hats allows one to get away from the Western tradition of argument that says 'A' has a point of view but 'B' disagrees. There are six hats, each designed to represent a way of thinking about a problem.
White Hat - think of white paper - neutral - carries information, data and information
Red Hat - think of fire and warmth - feelings, emotions, hunches and intuition
Black Hat - think of stern judge - black robes, black hat is for critical judgment
Yellow Hat - think of sunshine - optimism, feasibility and how things can be done
Green Hat - think of vegetation and rich growth, creative thinking, new ideas, additional alternatives
Blue Hat - think of blue sky - overview, process control, sets agenda for thinking, summaries, conclusions
Both 'A' and 'B' can wear the black hat at the same time to find the dangers in an idea. They can both wear a Yellow Hat to to explore the benefits. That way all members of the discussion can be thinking in the same way for a period of time without the need to argue and take sides. The organizer can decide when to change the hats and all agree to abide by his/her rulings.
Fresh Tool #3. S.C.A.M.P.E.R.
Apply SCAMPER to the problem you wish to solve or your specific situation.
You can use each of the letters of this word SCAMPER as follows:
S – Substitute (can you apply something else)
C – Combine (can you mix in something, add)
A – Adapt (can anything be changed, modified)
M – Modify, Magnify, Minimize
P – Put (to other uses)
E – Eliminate (one or more of the elements)
R - Rearrange, Reverse, Redefine
These 3 tools are only the tip of the iceberg. One reference on the Internet counted over 250 creative thinking methods from just 13 books! These 3 may just spark your interest in studying more deeply into this fascinating subject.
This study is not just for fun, it can also really assist in helping you make better financial decisions by being able to marshal more ideas, options and ways of doing things and then applying them to the financial decisions at hand.
Bruce Hokin is an experienced accountant (FCPA) specializing in Cost Benefit Analysis. You can find more of his in-depth FREE articles, FREE Newsletter and e-zines at his website. To sign up for his downloadable Cost Benefit Analysis training program "5 Steps to Cost Benefit Mastery" just go to his website. You could be using this technique in under 2 hours! Available at www.thecostbenefitcoach.com |
| Author: Bruce Hokin |
| Directory: Management
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Featured Article |
| Five Powerful Strategies for Getting Maximum Website Traffic |
Every webmaster dreams of getting so much traffic from the search engines that it overloads the circuits of their web hosting provider's network. Getting your site listed on page one for several relevant keyword phrases on the major search engines is the key to approaching this level of traffic. Getting there requires creative writing skills, diligent effort and a little knowledge about search engine optimization. Read on for some search optimization instructions including five indispensable elements to help your search engine rankings and resulting traffic.
Content is King: - If you have done any research on search engine optimization, you are aware of the need to optimize the content of your web pages. Your content must be optimized for the search engines and have optimal usage of your most important relevant keywords and keyword phrases. As you write user friendly content keep in mind you should be optimizing your pages with phrases that best match your overall theme. This is preferred by the search engine algorithms. You can then focus on link popularity and link quality to help drive traffic. More on those two strategies in a moment.
Keyword Optimization - By optimizing your pages with the phrases that best match the overall theme of your site, it will improve the likelihood that users will find your site when searching for content like yours. You should seek out short multi-word phrases unless your keywords are unique. First, find your optimum keywords and determine their popularity. Also, use your top keyword phrases within your meta tags including your title, description, keyword and h1 through h6 meta tags.
Link Popularity - To increase your traffic, you must increase your link popularity. Link popularity is the number of links on the internet that reference to your website. If you are on a budget, link popularity can generally be increased primarily in two ways. The first method is by exchanging links with other web sites with similar content. The second method is publishing articles online that relate to your site, including a link to your site in the article and then publishing the article on as many article directory sites as possible. Employing both methods is the most effective; however, the latter is extremely effective because it creates multiple one-way links back to your site.
Article Publishing - Most webmasters frequently seek out good site content - remember content is king. They either lack the writing skills or lack the innovation or initiative to develop the content themselves. Webmasters with a budget often hire ghost writers. Those without money look to article directories to obtain some of their content. This demand for content by other webmasters creates an opportunity for you to socialize your site. Writing articles that relate to your content and publishing those articles within article directories ultimately disseminates your link onto other webmaster's sites. Think of the potential here. You are getting a one-way link from every site that posts your article. Top search engine optimization gurus exploit this little known strategy to drive their client web sites to top rankings
Link Quality - Remember, link popularity is important, but link quality may be even more crucial. There are two facets to link quality. First, sites that are pointing to your website ideally must have related content. Search engines will give links from sites with related content more credibility. The second component to link quality is the actual words the other webmaster uses in your link. The goal is to ensure the links pointing back to your website include your most relevant keywords in the link title.
Search engine optimization requires a combination of these five elements. Highly optimizing your website content and obtaining high link popularity from quality links will absolutely strengthen your search engine rankings over time. Of course, as with many things, your level of effort at implementing these elements is directly proportional with the results you can expect to get out.
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| Author: Marcus Pore |
| Directory: SEO Articles |
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Featured Article |
| Be positive about home based business |
The potential of the Internet is enormous. Some people have already figured out how to make a decent living off of it and even how to become a millionaire. Many people these days use Internet for many purposes. Making money online has certainly become the most popular thing of all. It is actually fairly easy and, most importantly, it’s fun! Many people like me embraced the idea of running their business from home. There are many different ways regular people from every walk of life make a living this way. Some people get paid for completing surveys, some through affiliate programs etc. I am glad that I live in the 21st century because I, like many others was able to make a decent living through the Information Age we live in. This is great! I enjoy my financial freedom each and every day. I hope others will find it appealing too. We truly do live in a world of great opportunities. My advice to entrepreneurs like me is to choose carefully the company they signup with. Some of them will be honest and solid, and others will not be worth of wasting your time and money that you so hardly earn. I have tried so many worthless companies that I almost gave up on the idea of making extra money from home on I-net. That was until I found the right one I began to believe again and have not regretted it ever since. One of the best ways to make money is through affiliate programs. You must begin to learn about web promotion. Try to read everything you can get your hands on. Read other peoples’ opinions about these programs who have reviewed them before you came. Learn from their mistakes and successes and you will be on your way to achieving your dreams. If you need help of any kind to start and grow your home-based Internet business, go to my website at http://www.onlinebizwizard.com There you will find everything you need at no cost to you. Good luck!
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| Author: Alexander Kolmogorov |
| Directory: Advertising - Affiliate-programs |
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Featured Article |
| Promotional Articles Increase Your Web Site Traffic |
One of the most effective methods of getting targeted traffic to a site is by using promotional articles. There are several reasons why articles are effective and examining them will help us understand this subject a little better.
To start with, it is useful to remember that most people come online looking for information. They are usually already aware of the fact that this information is available in web sites and they are eager to find sites that are packed with the information that they are looking for. If they find a promotional article covering the subject that they are seeking information on, they will eagerly read it and if they like what they see, they will then visit your web site. Promotional articles are therefore a great way to attract attention to yourself and your web site.
Unlike traffic that directly originates from search engines, visitors who arrive at your site after having read your promotional articles will not only be highly targeted, but they will also already be prepared in that they will have a very good idea of what is available at your site. This means that they will usually be much easier to convert into paying clients. In other words much smaller number of readers arriving at your site through promotional articles will tend to be much more profitable to you than bigger numbers arriving via any other web site promotional method you can think of using.
Then there is the fact that a single article can continue to pull in traffic for your web site for years to come without you having to invest any more time or money on it. For instance a good promotional article distributed to article directories, web sites and blogs will tend to remain online for years. In effect it will continue to be available to persons interested in the subject, and a good number of them will end up at your web site. This is a huge advantage.
These are but a few of the many reasons why articles tend to be more profitable than many other forms of web site promotion.
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| Author: Terry Detty |
| Directory: SEO Articles |
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Featured Article |
| Start an easy home business now! |
Did you know that one of the easiest home based businesses to start is a Welcome Service? Start now and the opportunities are endless ! You will be amazed to know that there is very little competition in most local areas. You will earn money from local businesses who want their products and services to reach new home owners in the area.
So now you are wondering what a welcome service business is all about, right?
A welcome service delivers discounts, specials, maps, community tips and other valuable information from local businesses to new home owners. This information is in the form of promotional items, newsletters, gift bags, envelopes or it could be a Compact Disc (CD). You can even come up with your own creative way of packing the items, and then deliver them by visiting new home owners in your area.
Home owners love this type of service because they get valuable information in one big package - for free! Your income will come from the fee that businesses pay in order to be included in your welcome packets. Local businesses love to sponsor welcome services because they gain access to new home owners easily through you.
This type of business has the most growth potential in large urban areas, where new residents move in often. A welcome service business will work well for you if you are a person who loves social interaction and networking with business owners.
There are two aspects to this business: identifying new neighbors, and soliciting local businesses. You will need a system to determine when new neighbors are moving in, maybe by forming relationships with moving companies, keeping a tabs on local newspaper listings, or by working with real estate agents who will alert you when someone rents or buys a property in the area.
At least initially, the main bulk of running your business will be assembling the packet - and this means going from one business to another soliciting part of their advertising or marketing money. Of course, the more businesses that you win over, the greater your income. This aspect may be easy or hard, depending on how well you know business owners or store managers in your area. Networking is extremely important; otherwise the notice "No Solicitation" in many businesses and local stores may stop you in your tracks!
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| Author: Bizymoms.com Management |
| Directory: Small Business Articles |
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Featured Article |
| What Is Google Adsense Program? |
You may not know what Google Adsense Program is but you’ve probably heard it before. Google Adsense program is one of the hottest ways to make passive income for people with all types of websites. The Google Adsense program consists of Google Adsense for content and Google Adsense for Search.
Google Adsense content is an easy way for website owner to make money by displaying Googles Adsense ads on the content pages of their websites. Google Adsense will deliver ads that are most related to your site content. Google Adsense for Search provides Google search capability to your website. The Adsense Ads will be displayed in the search results pages.
How do You Make Money with Google Adsense?
As mentioned, Google will deliver the Adsense ads that are best match the content of your web page. Every time a user clicks on a Google Adsense ad, Google will pay you. Google will share a portion of the profit it gets from its advertisers with you. Since Google provides you the ads, you no longer have to worry about dealing with your advertisers. It is so easy to set up an Adsense Account and start making money with Adsense. Everyone should give it a try.
How Do You Get Started?
Before you apply for a Google Adsense account, you should have your own website ready. If your site is still under construction or it is not ready, your application will be rejected. You can resubmit your application once your site is ready and Google will review your application. It takes a day or two for Google Adsense team to approve a new Adsense application. Read this before you apply for your Google Adsense account.
Once your application is approved, it takes only minutes to set up the Google Adsense Ad on your website. All you have to do is cut and paste a designated block of HTML code into the source code for your site. Once you’ve done that, you will start seeing Adsense Ads on your site.
A Piece of Advice
Please read the terms and conditions of Google Adsense program carefully because if you’re caught violating these terms and conditions, you will be banned for life. You should never ever try to manipulate your adsense income by clicking on Google Adsense ads on your website or ask someone to click on the Adsense ads intentionally. Google Adsense is intelligent enough to know the click fraud and they will terminate your Adsense account immediately. It is almost impossible to make an appeal to Google without a good and valid reason.
About Author: Find Out More Information about Starting A Successful Money Making Adsense Business Now at: http://adsense.awardspace.biz
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| Author: Jerry Oakman |
| Directory: Internet - Internet Marketing |
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Featured Article |
| Why Do You Need a Blog for your Business? |
You have a website for your business - shouldn’t that be enough? Why would you need a blog? Read on to find the answers to this question.
A business blog is an excellent communication tool that you can use to share your company's expertise, build additional web traffic and connect with potential customers. Blogs are no longer just online diaries of people's personal lives. All kinds of businesses, whether online or offline, can use blogs to take their products and services to a wider audience and increase their traffic, leads and sales. This is the latest trend sweeping the business community.
A blog can therefore be a very powerful tool for marketing and promoting your business. What’s more, blog software is easy to use. It is extremely simple to add information to a blog - write your thoughts, link to resources, and hey presto!, you can publish one with the touch of a few keys. You can also add a simple little feature that automatically tells a whole bunch of other websites that you've made an update to your blog.
Let us now take a look at how blogging can actually help your business. An effective blog can:
o Increase traffic to your main website – The reasons being that it is updated more often, is conversational in tone and shows your business in a positive light. It is a place where your customers can get to know your company and learn about your products, achievements and innovations.
o Advertise your products - A blog can serve as an advertisement for your business. Releasing or adding a new product? Use your blog to highlight it.
o Keep your customers updated with the latest information – Use your blog to let your customers know when you’ve updated your site. You can also entice a customer’s interest in future products or projects. Additionally, you can use the comments feature to get feedback on new offers and launches.
o Use it as a great customer service tool – By regularly updating your entries and replying to the comments, you can gain a reputation for great customer service. It’s a certainty that people will come back for more.
o Improve your search engine ranking – Blogs tend to rank high in search results as opposed to static websites that are rarely updated.
o Link from other blogs – Bloggers have a tendency to promote each other. If you create a blog that is useful and relevant, you will find other blogs talking about it and providing links to it. It is like having your own PR staff to help spread the word about your business.
o Generate extra income – There are several advertising programs that allow you to earn money through your blog. This could turn into a source of additional revenue for your business.
The good news is that blogging is here to stay. The question is, when are you planning your trip to blogosphere?
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| Author: Akhil Shahani |
| Directory: Internet |
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Featured Article |
| Publicity Secrets: Writing a Killer Headline |
Read This & Editors Will Use Your Press Release
Yes, I made a guarantee. And watch me fulfill it . . . all you have to do is stay with me for three minutes to learn the most important commandment in writing a press release and one almost no one really follows.
I’m going to stun all my readers this month with a simple, yet powerful rule that is one of the most consistently ignored commandments in the media business. I see top gun PR flaks break the rule (often) and even solid journalists. If you think this is hyperbole, remember, as the editor of five different publications I read more than 1,000 press releases each year.
Here’s the secret everyone ignores: Most people who write a press release compose lousy headlines. Most headlines are dull, say nothing, too cute or promise something the story can’t deliver. Sometimes the headline is just wrong.
Yet headlines are the most important element of a press release. One of America’s top marketing experts, someone who gets, from what I hear, about $25,000 per appearance, is allegedly to have said that you could sell anything with a great headline and testimonials.
Well, I’m not in complete agreement, but I know what he meant with the headline.
It boils down to this: If you can’t get your reader to go to the next line you’re dead. Proof? Why do you read a newspaper article especially if it’s NOT on a topic that you usually read, what makes you actually read the article? It’s the headline. If you’re not drawn it, you stop and turn the page or move on to another story.
There isn’t enough time for me to give you a complete lesson on writing a headline. But I got you this far with a pretty fair headline. So now comes the reward.
Here Comes That Secret Tip:
Here’s your big PR tip: Solve a problem in the headline. That’s it. Just solve a problem.
I recently wrote a press release for an insurance organization that has ties to the HVACR industry. The original headline mentioned the connection. Nice, but so what? Does the reader REALLY care?
What did Tom do with the headline? I showed that the insurance company could LOWER medical coverage costs IF they belonged to the trade organization.
Yes, I kept the connection between the two organizations but it was important to give them a reason to read more. The reason? Save money, it’s something everyone, especially contractors, wants to do. (Sorry, can’t reveal who it is but you’ve heard of them if you’re in the HVACR business.)
Here’s a quick example:
Company XYZ Releases New Value (Who Cares!!!)
New Value Saves Technicians 20 Minutes on Service Calls (Now, you care because you’re saving time. You solved the problem of time that all technicians face.)
Another Tip.
I was a very average headline writer for many years as a journalist. Frankly, I didn’t care about headlines (even though I “knew” the rule about its importance) I always reasoned that my writing was so good readers would just devour my words. I was wrong. The simple truth is that without a compelling headline, they won’t bother to read what you write.
I got better at headline writing with a very simple approach. Practice. I started paying attention to headlines. Remember your first change out with brand XXX? Tough! How could you ever do it by yourself, you asked. A year or two later and you’re ready to show someone else how it’s done. Practice is what gave you the skill and the confidence. Practice really does almost make perfect. And if you don’t have the talent for it (after all, who has talent for EVERYTHING), find someone who does.
© Galileo Communications Inc. 2007
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| Author: Tom Peric |
| Directory: Writing |
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Featured Article |
| Business Visibility for High Profits - Seven Ways |
Judy Cullins ©2007 All Rights Reserved.
Is your present marketing working? Working well enough to take a yearly vacation, buy that needed car, or create tuition enough to send your child to college?
Do you wonder how you can write powerful copy for email marketing, stay in touch with your potential clients, and keep your web site selling?
Now you can attract all the clients and product sales you want
with... No selling. No expensive Google ads or pay-per-click tools. No telephone cold or warm calls. No seminars, travel. panty hose. No closing. No hard-to-learn techie ways. You can reach this goal by creating the following seven ways to get your service business more visible.
1. Power up your signature file. Does it inspire your reader to take action? Always include your contact information, a free offer such as an ezine or special report. Make sure you put your defining statement under your name. Potential clients don't care about the initials after your name. They care what you can do for them. Automate your signature file so it's on every email you send out-a really soft way to sell yourself. It's a big mistake to not include your sig file in each email you send.
2. Brand your business with a short print or eBook. Stop thinking difficult, expensive and the long, slow traditional path. You don't need to write the end all, be all book. Today's busy people want a short read. They don't have time to read long books loaded with stories. They want their information fast and easy-to-read. A book coach can help you make each page of your book market itself by engaging its readers in each chapters.
A saleable book is well organized, well formatted and answers the questions your clients need answers for. You are much more likely to get glowing testimonials this way too.
3. Know your preferred audience-your potential clients and customers before you write a marketing piece. This is all important for each seminar, email, enewsletter, and web copy you create. Take time to create an audiece profile. Does your audience use the internet? Are they primarily women or men? Age group? What questions do they want answered?
4. Write short tip and how to articles. Submit these as a complimentary report to your email lists each two weeks.
Then, when your group thinks they are ready for you, they will remember how much you helped them along the way. They will see you as the savvy expert in your field. Writing articles are money in the bank. You can leverage one article into four. You can use them in your ezines. You can submit to them to top web sites and article directories. These publishers want your original information for their subscribers. When the subscribers read your articles and like what you say, they will flock to your web site.
5. Submit your articles to high traffic web sites and article directories. This takes only a half hour a day or about four hours total a week. After you gather 10 articles, you are ready to grab the fortunes of viral marketing. When people see your article on one site, they may use it on their own site, on their blogs, and in their ezines. This is endless publicity that keeps your name alive for many years.
6. Delegate the submissions to an assistant like your internet marketing coach does. For five hours of web marketing each week that sends two articles to around 50 web sites, the cost is $50 for over $5000 sales each month. This giving to get advanced article marketing is the #one way to get big visibility to your business.
7. Revise your web copy on your home page and service pages if your aren't attracting plenty of clients. Did you know that each product and service you offer needs a sales letter so your potential clients will have enough information to make a decision to buy?
Make your business much more visible at the lowest cost and time investment. Use these seven ways and profit! |
| Author: Judy Cullins |
| Directory: Marketing |
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Featured Article |
| Designing your Web Site |
Designing your Web Site
It is important to plan and outline the design on which you are going to base your work. Like any other work, Web page designing and publishing also needs a design layout and some planning.
If you just go ahead and start putting your random thoughts or ideas then your Web site will be very difficult to navigate through and it will not be understood by the users. It does not take too much effort to design and plan your Web site. In fact, it becomes much easier to expand such a website later.
Flow of Web Information
A Web site is a collection of Web pages that are linked with each other to form one single body of information. A Web site can offer information about the object that it aims to describe using text, graphics, and audio or maybe in some cases video.
Web sites vary from personal/hobby pages to online shopping Web sites, which include Auto Retail Web Design, E-commerce Web Design, Real Estate Web Site Design, Medical Web Site Design, Presentation Site Web Design, Travel Web Design. There are also online education, information and publication Web sites. Basically web site content can be almost anything. It all depends on the developer’s creativity and design.
It may be possible that at the onset you may not be sure as to what you want to publish in your Web site.
Objective Of The Web Site
Web sites are designed keeping in mind a particular set of audience or clients. But with the incredible reach of this medium it has become necessary to keep in mind the global audience. The chance of a web site being visited by not just its target audience is increasing by the day. A very common design technique is to design the Web site in such a manner that it reflects the image of the person, the company or the product.
Basically you have to decide on your primary Web audience and then depending on that create your website. If you just want to put your personal information or hobby page on the Web, then you can develop a web site that shows just that a personal information page containing your hobbies, your pictures and every-thing else that you would like others to know about you.
If you are making a Web page for a company then, you will be primarily addressing the market audience. In such a case your Web site will be containing company profile, job openings, product information and other such features. Another similar example is the online shopping stores on the Web. If you intend creating an online store for selling books then the book reader becomes you main audience.
Whether your target audience is a student, a teacher, an artist or a businessman, your website is still open to the world at large. At no point of time is it restricted to any one type of audience. Once your Web site is on the Internet it can be viewed by anyone in the world. Keeping this in mind you have to develop and design your Web site.
Basic Interface Design
The users of the Internet prefer to view web sites that are not only rich in content but have an equally attractive visual interface and design. To create a website which has these features is not too difficult. Web pages are different from printed documents or books since they are based on hypertext links. Therefore Web pages need to have more intuitive design.
You can use graphic icons as navigation and interaction aids to make the Web site attractive. Since, the Internet faces the constraint of bandwidth; the graphics used have to be not only attractive but also small in their file size.
A significant aspect of designing user interface is providing a link to the main page of the Web site, i.e. the opening page. The World Wide Web is a huge network of computers and often while browsing you have no clue from where a certain page originates and to where you may go on your next mouse click. In order to minimize this you should include a HOME link to your main site page so that the user knows the origin or the starting point of the particular Web site. This link can be a graphic icon or simple text link, it largely depends on the complete page design. Using these features in your interface you can give the user a very helpful and efficient Web interface.
Developing A Storyboard For The Web Site
A storyboard helps you to plan Web site and decide what goes where before you actually start constructing. In this way, you end up creating an outline of the Web site much before you actually start developing.
This storyboard should contain all the information of the Web site, which includes the function of the site, it’s target audience, the graphic layout and design, navigation within the Website and the overall functionality of the site. If the web site is small and simple, then you may find this not so essential. But where the Web site is complex and involves more than two or three people, there you should definitely consider using storyboard. In large Web site development, storyboard not only saves time but also avoids a lot of unnecessary confusion and mistakes.
Storyboarding can be done on sheets of paper or by using special software packages. The best software utilities for doing this are those that also help in Web site management. These packages give you a graphical view of the entire Web site with hyperlinks and also the provision for modifying. A popular software for Web site planning and development is Microsoft’s FrontPage Explorer, which shows you the complete website design on one single page with all links and options displayed. Change in one link automatically gets reflected in other relevant pages. SiteMan, is another software, very user-friendly and allows the user to check the site offline and has the provision of making site-wide changes. Then there is NetObjects Fusion also used for site administration and management purposes.
Navigation And Links Within The Website
It is always helpful if you divide your web site into sections and then list down the broad goals for each section.
Once you have made the broad categories you need to work towards website navigation and organization. As you know that most of the user interaction with Web pages on a site is done using navigating hypertext links. The most common interface problem arises when the user gets lost in the site. This problem can be solved if proper and clear graphics. Icons or text based navigation help is included in the Web page.
Using these navigation bars you help the user in understanding your Web site layout. If these navigation bars are not included in the design then the user is totally dependent on the Web browser buttons of ‘Back’ and ‘Forward’ which have the possibility of taking him out of your web site.
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| Author: web design |
| Directory: Web - Web-Design |
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Featured Article |
| Guidelines For Doing Business In China |
In the last two decades, no country like China has received so much coverage worldwide. Their economy expansion has attracted many foreign investors who want to get a piece of the growing economy. Furthermore, with regard to the WTO, China has been relaxing their restrictions on foreign investments regulations. This actually indicates that the government is supporting foreign investors to enter into the China market. China is placing more importance to the quality rather than the quantity of foreign investment. This shows the development of the China market where they are focusing on refining their economy as they expand further.
The growth of the China market is increasing as such a high speed that the number of foreign companies is flocking in each year.
From 2001 till 2005, China has attracted 345.6 billion U.S. dollars in foreign investment more than the 323.3 billion dollars that poured in over the nine years from 1992 to 2000. China market’s appeal to foreign investors are growing at such a rapid rate that China’s economy is no longer just a production factory. Foreign companies are entering into China not only to produce their goods but also to selling their products to the local consumers.
However, entering the China market needs a lot of tactics, networking, and familiarities.
1. Tactics
Many of the foreign investors who enter into the China market have a huge amount of experience in business administration and marketing strategies. However, the Chinese have a different way of doing business and most foreign companies do not have the correct tactics to deal with things in China.
2. Networking
Most people would agree that networking is very important for business dealings. With a strong network, we will be able to seek for help or consult someone if any problems were to occur. In China, networking or “guan xi” is one of the main methods which the Chinese use. “Guan xi” is the Chinese term that the locals use. The Chinese believe that everyone needs to establish good relationships with others. The only way to really survive in China is through “guan xi”.
Foreign investors may think that as long they have good business relationships with other organizations would lead them to be successful in China. However, this is only partially true. In China, any kind of relationships are important. Be it a personal or business or even governmental relationship, all of them are crucial in establishing a successful enterprise.
With good personal “guan xi”, the Chinese can rope in people whom they can trust into their business. The Chinese believe in having trust among their counterparts.
With good business “guan xi”, the Chinese would be able to negotiate easily and collaborate with others to ensure a lasting partnership with other parties. Having business “guan xi” would allow the local companies to meet more clients and suppliers to expand their business.
With good governmental “guan xi”, the Chinese would be able to settle their bureaucratic and administrative work faster as their contacts would be able to advise them on a personal level. Furthermore, any problems encountered with the paperwork, the Chinese would be able to seek help through their governmental relationships.
Thus, the Chinese value relationships very highly and even though their business with their contacts failed, the Chinese would continue to maintain a close relationship with them.
3. Familiarities
To enter into the Chinese market, one must have a good grasp of the Chinese culture. As different countries have their own unique way of values and working styles, lots of conflicts tend to arise due to differences. Thus, the foreign companies need to familiarize themselves with the Chinese culture and understand how the Chinese work.
For example, without a full understanding of how the Chinese handle with the authorities can bring a lot of problems to the enterprise. The way the Chinese communicate to the authorities differs from how the way it works in other countries such as the US and Europe.
Hence, one of the best ways to familiarize themselves with the Chinese culture is to engage a local individual or firm as the link between the foreign company and the China market. Local parties have the expertise to handle any problems and have a better idea on how to negotiate with the local firms.
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| Author: Alina Hoon |
| Directory: Marketing |
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Featured Article |
| Your Email Advertising Will Make More Money When You Avoid Trying To Sell |
There can be no doubt that website promotion has proven to be one of the most challenging obstacles to many web site owners. How does one get their web site noticed among the sea of millions of web sites out there, much less get actual hits and visits they need to make money?
This is the fact that email advertising will tend to be much more successful when a webmaster totally avoids trying to sell directly in their email marketing. Instead the effective and powerful way to use email is to use it to attract traffic to a web site. Once the prospect has arrived at the web site, one can then attempt to try and sell them whatever it is that they have on offer. Usually this yields much better results and tends to have a major impact in many online marketing campaigns. In actual fact traffic is generated in large quantities of traffic to blogs and then re-directed to web sites for the actual sales transaction to be consummated.
In conclusion none can really totally replace the other and both blogs and web sites have their individual very important key roles to play in the marketing success of any online enterprise.
There is another more important reason why diverting email traffic to a web site works much better than trying to sell directly. In many cases the list used for email advertising has been hired. Or the webmaster may have chosen to advertise within a popular email newsletter or ezine. If they then opt to try and sell directly through their email advertising, it means that they only have one chance to sell to each of the prospects who see the email. However if they direct the prospects to their web sites, there is a high possibility of one of two things happening. Either the prospect can like what they see so much that they will end up book-marking the site and becoming regular visitors, or they can even sign up for the opt-in email list being run from the site.
Both ways, the web site or blog site owner will get many other chances and opportunities to try and sell the prospect their product or service.
This is exactly how to use email marketing effectively. It means that one can simply hire an opt-in email list from somebody else or even advertise in a high circulating email newsletter only once but end up with some useful long-term benefits.
The List King Pro's email marketing software from Majon.com is the quickest, safest and most cost effective way to distribute your exclusive advertisement via email. We distribute your stand-alone email message direct to our double opt-in email databases. Send your email advertisement to reach millions of targeted opt-in permission based email recipients. In order for this form of internet advertising to work for you it is important to find a trust worthy company that has years of experience with email marketing and that will give you results.
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| Author: Terry Detty |
| Directory: Internet - Internet Marketing |
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Featured Article |
| How to get thousands of visitors to your new blog in 10 easy steps |
You have a new blog and you want to be read by thousands of people. But how to get them to your blog?
For start you must have some posts. Search engines and people must read something on your blog.
So if you don’t have content add some before start promoting the blog.
Remember if the content is high quality people will talk about your blog to other, that brings you extra free traffic.
So let us start promoting the blog.
1. Let search engine know you exist.
The idea is to get the search engines come and index your site.
There is a free service that submits your blog in 20 search engines. All you have to do is to choose the desired search engines where you want the blog to appear, write the url and a valid email address. You may submit from http://www.freewebsubmission.com.
2. Submit your blog to blog directories
Submitting to blog directories will help you increase the number of visitors, your page rank and your search engine position.
Submit in as many blog directories as you can.
3. Submit your blog to general and niche directories
Submitting general and niche get a better search engine position and will increase the number of readers for your blog.
For directory submission you can use a software tool to automatize the process and save weeks of work. You can gat a free trial for the software from http://www.submiteaze.com/index.jsp?aff=137.
4. Submit you feeds to Rss directories
Submit your blog to all of the directories listed at http://www.rss-feeds-directory.com/blog_lists.html to get extra traffic.
5. Use social bookmarks
Adding social bookmark links to your blog makes it easy for your visitors to save and share your content.
There is a free tool to make social bookmarks: http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/social-bookmarks.
6. Use Article Directories
Article directories can be a great resource for articles to post on your blog. Here are a few: http://ezinearticles.com, http://goarticles.com, http://www.knowledge-finder.com
http://www.informit.com/articles.
7. Start a press release campaign
When you have enough content on your blog start a press release campaign. You will find a lot of press release distributors just using a search engine.
8. Place the link and description of your blog in your signature
So that any posts to forums, outgoing emails, auto responder courses will promote your blog.
9. Locate blogs with a lot of traffic and place useful comments in their comment box.
Be sure the blog and your comments are relevant to both your blog and theirs. Senseless posts won't help you, they'll hurt you.
10. Use ping services
Pinging will alert different search engines that your blog has updated.
So the crawlers will come and index your new post. They crawl and index your site and your blog gets more visitors.
The ping tool that I recommend is http://autopinger.com.
All this techniques I have personally used with success on my blog http://www.gadgets-club.com. This gadget blog was launched in January 2007 and attracted 6016 visits in less than 20 days.
Remember to make a blog post as often as possible. More than once a day is not really necessary.
Success.
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| Author: Dan Ionescu |
| Directory: Internet - Internet Marketing |
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Featured Article |
| The Secrets Of Getting High Traffic For Your Site From Search Engines |
Many webmasters who hate any form of control will hate to ever admit it, but the fact is that well over 80 per cent of the traffic web sites and blog sites typically receive still comes in via search engines. It matters little that in recent times search engines have had to face the wrath of webmasters who have seen their traffic wiped out virtually overnight by unfavorable adjustments in their algorithms. Many have abandoned search engine optimization in a huff and sworn to find other ways to generate traffic.
Still there is no denying that search engines are a source of traffic that cannot be ignored. In fact search engines are the most reliable source of traffic for many webmasters and so it is important to understand precisely how they go about getting traffic via the search engines. On the surface it looks like manything that is terribly difficult to achieve. One reason is the fact that with search engines you are competing with the rest of the world for traffic—a daunting task, no doubt.
If You Want Traffic You Must Understand The Different Search Engines
There are three major search engines. Namely Google (which accounts for about 60 oer cent of the total traffic), Yahoo and MSN. The last two account for almost 40 per cent of the total traffic and this is interesting to note because many people totally ignore Yahoo and MSN and tend to focus all their attention on the giant Google.
Always remember that the three major search engines all have different algorithms and have slightly different requirements. For example a high keyword density of over 10 per cent will get a site rated well with Yahoo and MSN. However such a key word density with Google is too high and will be dangerously close to being penalized for SPAM key wording. Actually a keyword density of 5 per cent or below will tend to work out much better with the Google search engine. So how does one strike a balance?
Many webmasters keep their keyword density low with Google in mind and then use other tactics like back links to appear high in the search results for Yahoo and MSN for the same article.
It is very important to understand the different requirements of the different search engines, if you are serious about generating high traffic from search engines.
High Traffic From Search Engines Must Include A Blog Strategy
Blogs almost always tend to rank higher in search engine results for high traffic keywords than traditional web sites. The reason is that blogs have much more content that websites usually do, which means many more words for search engines to comb for keywords and keyword phrases.
Because of this, no serious search engine optimization can take place that has not incorporated blogs in to their strategy. The way most web sites use blogs is to generate lots of content and post it on their blog with a generous number of lonks pointing back to their site. Thus what happens is that the huge blog traffic that they are able to attract within a very short time is re-directed to their site.
Blogs are also the ideal way to create interaction with your prospects and you can use them to answer queries and also give valuable tips on how to benefit more from your product or service.
Select The Right Keywords
But even as you make every effort to generate the sort of valuable content that will distinguish your site, chances are that you will be wasting your valuable time if you have not done your homework concerning the right keywords and keyword phrases to use.
Usually you will need to use online services that need to be paid for, for you to be able to efficiently identify the most valuable high traffic keywords which you have a decent chance of ranking highly with leading search engines.
One cannot avoid this subject of keywords when seeking to generate traffic as it is the main way that traffic is generated from all search engines. These days keyword research also involves finding alternate substitute words to use to avoid repeating keywords too often and being penalized for it by search engines like Google.
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| Author: Terry Detty |
| Directory: SEO Articles |
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