Casual Articles - Business

Condemnation Of Outsourcing By Weak Minded Linear Thinkers
Many people are against outsourcing because it takes jobs from Americans, yet these same people are simply totally ignorant to the free market system. Unfortunately they either lack IQ, will not listen to facts or completely are fanatical over the created and contrived controversy.Recently I confronted such an individual from Iowa and told this gentleman Jason how I perceived this argument;"Those weak minded people are of no consequence and it is a waste of time to argue with them. You clearly are out of your league in arguing your comments."He informs me that; “Well mr. procapitalist... we agree weak minded individuals are not worth arguing with... to this I will add, they also resort to personal attacks when questioned thoughtfully or reasoned with.”Unfortunately if you could have read his first email it was a complete rant and even included a reference and belief of his that Bill Gates was the Devil? You know it is hard to reason with such pea head morons, who just do not get it. And some would say that everyone is entitled to their opinion. But if their opinion is some bogus notion, which is easily explained, well let’s send these kids back to Economics Class 101 or take away their voting privileges.It is amazing to me how the US workforce can demand so much, bitch and moan and complain about all the free benefits they want and then cause more over regulation and union demands; then wonder why companies off shore jobs? Dah. As an employer it seems to me the personal attacks against the nations greate

tising

Search Engines
As a business owner, your first priority should be to get your website listed in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista. This can be done simply by submitting your website to various search engines.

Directories
You can also submit your site to web directories, which are databases of categorized listings of websites. Focus on directories that are popular and specialize on your industry.

Link Building
Considering that the World Wide Web was created with the concept of discovering new websites and web pages by following links between documents, link building is an important factor in optimizing your website for search engines. Effective link building consists of exchanging links with authoritative and information websites that relate to and/or compliment your e-commerce business.

Specifically Google, but other search engines included, believe that when web page A links to web page B, web page A is casting a vote for web page B. The more votes web page B has, the more important that page is perceived to be by search engines. The value of the web page linking to the web page B also determines how important that vote is. Google determines the importance of a web page by associating it with a Page Rank (PR). Page Rank is another factor that plays a significant role in determining the position of a website on the search engine result page. To view the Page Rank of websites, you can download the Goo

New Leader - Do You Know What Your Job Is?
At first glance, this question may seem a little silly. Of course I know what my job is. But in my experience, from both sides of the fence, many of us find out the hard way just what is expected of us. So here’s a blueprint for any new leader that wants to make sure they focus on the right areas.First of all, refer to your written job description. Read it several times and make sure you understand each area. Make notes for the areas that you need more clarification on. Make additions where you feel it is necessary.Next, request regular one on one meetings with your manager. So often I hear about managers that never have the time or feel it is necessary to meet. Don’t let your manager determine if this happens. Be proactive and ask for the time.Once you have a regular time scheduled, sit down with your manager and discuss what she expects from you. Be specific. What information do you need? When do you need it? How often? Hand her a copy of your job description and go over each area to make sure you are both reading it the same way. Clarify what types of situations your manager would like to be updated on, such as staffing changes personnel issues.During each one on one, make sure that you ask for feedback on your performance. Do not wait for your formal review to find out how she feels. A formal performance review is just that…..a review, not new information that you have never discussed.And finally, I always suggest that leaders share their list of expectations with their team members. Your team produc

Starting your own e-commerce business can be quite the adventure. There is nothing wrong with falling head over heels in love with your ideas and plans and becoming overly excited, but always remember, feet first. Creating a business from scratch is like a child learning to walk. You need to grab on to something solid, feel around, get a sense of balance, and take baby steps.

Risky Business

Before running full speed ahead with your brilliant business brainchild, proper planning is required. Being an entrepreneur is risky business, however you can improve your chances of success with preparation and development.

First, you need to research your target market, product and services, competitors, the demographic of your potential customers, popular key words associated with your business and the probable cost involved. After compiling all this information, you need to ask yourself, ‘is it worth it? If the answer is yes, then carry on.

Step 1: It’s All In the Name

You have you business idea, you’ve conducted your market research, preparation is complete, and now you are beginning to get butterflies in your stomach from all the excitement that comes with starting your own business. So what’s next? The Name.

You should start considering names for your company in the beginning stages of your business’s development. Use a serious name for a serious company and a fun name for creative company or a company that markets towards children. But keep in mind that the name of your business must earn the attention and trust of your potential customers.

While selecting your company’s name, bear in mind the qualities you would like your company to portray. If you want to represent a very aggressive, high tech, corporate, and cutting-edge company, you should not come up with the name like 'Sloopy' or 'Scroochy'.

Important Points To Consider In Name Selection:

• Shorter is better. It is easier to remember names like Nike opposed to 'Kransferst Bayer Colombo Association of Michigan' . • Make sure the name is easily pronounced. It's very hard to pronounce 'Shmakhtnik', 'Kchichkus' or 'Xsassassas'.

• It may be helpful to have the name associated with your company's philosophy. For example, a strong solid company should use a strong, bold name such as 'Bamm', 'CastleDom', 'Gong'. A high-tech company could use a more creative name such as 'Ampex', 'Freebee', 'Ciriu'. Design companies can use even more creative names such as 'Venturius', 'BlueFrog', 'BlackInc'.

• Try to relate the name to the field of business. For example, a food company - 'Bacon House', an office supplier - 'BluePin', a construction company - 'GoldenBrick'.

• Create a recognizable image. Come up with a meaningful name like an object name or a word that has a meaning like: 'Penguin Solution', 'Flying Frog', 'Walking House', or 'Yellow Pot'.

• Do not forget your business's target market. Home insurance companies target a more mature market. It would be absurd to use a name like 'HipHop BangBang Solutions'.

• A good way to test out your company name is to tell it to your friends and ask them if they remember it in a week.

Step 2: Website Design

Marketing should start immediately after the company is created and a name has been chosen and officially registered. You want people to remember your company in a positive way. You need to make an outstanding first impression. So, the first thing you have to work on is your name and your face. In the e-commerce world your website is the name and face of the company.

The website is the most important marketing tool for an e-commerce business. The website needs to look legitimate and provoke a sense of trust. It needs to be appealing, simple to use, eye-catching, competitive and unique. Therefore, it is worth it to spend a good amount of time and money on your website design. If you are not savvy with website design and development, then invest in a talented website design company or independent designer.

Step 3: Website Marketing

A. Search Engine Optimization

Search engines use algorithms (mathematical formulas) to rank website listings in response to a particular keyword query. In order to protect themselves from webmasters and search engine optimizers manipulating the search engine results to their advantage, search engines do not reveal their ranking criteria. However, there are many factors that are speculated to be important influences in determining the position of a website on search engine result pages.

For example:

• Build a content rich website: Search engine spiders and bots like websites filled with informative and relevant text and content.

• Incoming links: Build up incoming links from relevant or complimentary sites. The more relevant and authoritative the incoming sites, the better your site will be in the eyes of the spiders and bots.

• Keywords: Try to place as many keywords in the content of your home page as possible without losing the sense and aesthetics of the page.

• Meta Tags: Meta tags are html text containing information about the website that is not seen by human viewers. Meta tags include title, description, and keyword tags. Considering that a title tag is the text that appears, representing your site, on a search engine result page, it is very important to choose a title tag that emphasizes keywords on that page.

• Header tags: Header tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5…) are used to designate headers and titles. H1 tags should be used to represent the first and most important header, H2 as the second and so on. Search engines give importance to text that differs from the text on the rest of the page. Bold, italics, underlines, and various font sizes are useful as well.

• Make the site simple, easy to surf and navigate, and eye-catching.

• Keep your website updated with fresh content, new pages and information.

B. Free Advertising

Directories
You can also submit your site to web directories, which are databases of categorized listings of websites. Focus on directories that are popular and specialize on your industry.

Why Moms Have the Upper Hand in Debt Collection
Collecting money is always a touchy issue for anyone, whether it is from someone you loaned it to, or someone who has purchased something from you. Women tend to want to wait, saying such things as, "Oh they will pay", or "Their having a hard time, I am sure they will pay when they can". Some of this is because we are compassionate creatures and some of it is because we will sometimes do anything in our power to avoid conflict or the thought of *gasp* someone not liking us, or thinking we are pushy. Well ladies, when someone owes you money, it is time to be pushy not a push over.If you are a mom, you can be a successful bill collector. In my opinion, if you are a mom, you are superwoman and can do anything you set your mind to. Some of the things moms and bill collectors have in common are:TeachingBeing assertive and firmBeing in charge of the situationTaking initiativeBeing organized to a faultNot taking any talking backFollow upWhen you are a bill collector you need to teach debtors what, why and when certain things happen as a result of their action. Such as what will happen if they don’t pay their bill. It could be reflected on their credit report, they could get dunning letters and collection calls at home or at work, they may end up in court, or with garnished wages. There are circumstances for everything we do. As a mother, you spend each day teaching this to your children.You must be sensitive to a debtor just like a small child. I am not saying treat a

that the name of your business must earn the attention and trust of your potential customers.

Important Points To Consider In Name Selection:

• Try to relate the name to the field of business. For example, a food company - 'Bacon House', an office supplier - 'BluePin', a construction company - 'GoldenBrick'.

• Create a recognizable image. Come up with a meaningful name like an object name or a word that has a meaning like: 'Penguin Solution', 'Flying Frog', 'Walking House', or 'Yellow Pot'.

• Do not forget your business's target market. Home insurance companies target a more mature market. It would be absurd to use a name like 'HipHop BangBang Solutions'.

• A good way to test out your company name is to tell it to your friends and ask them if they remember it in a week.

Step 2: Website Design

Step 3: Website Marketing

A. Search Engine Optimization

For example:

• Build a content rich website: Search engine spiders and bots like websites filled with informative and relevant text and content.

• Keywords: Try to place as many keywords in the content of your home page as possible without losing the sense and aesthetics of the page.

• Make the site simple, easy to surf and navigate, and eye-catching.

• Keep your website updated with fresh content, new pages and information.

B. Free Advertising

Directories
You can also submit your site to web directories, which are databases of categorized listings of websites. Focus on directories that are popular and specialize on your industry.

Bad Interview: How A Bad Interview or Bad Interviewer Can Effect You
Not all interviewers know what they are doing.Interviewing is not an easy task and not all people conducting interviews will come across as well as others.It’s easy to get turned off during an interview if the interviewer shows up late and doesn’t seem to care, doesn’t appear to have read your resume in advance or worse, if they forget they are even doing the interview with you and are surprised when you show up!I’ve seen this happen before.Sometimes, events that occur during the interview can leave you with a bad impression of the company and can cause you to question whether or not you want to work for them.The important part is to put the events in context. In the examples I gave above, perhaps the interviewer has been very busy and simply made a mistake not preparing enough for your interview with them. That’s not a good excuse, but keep this in mind.Plus, if the interviewer is not the person you’d be working for (ie. they aren’t the hiring manager) remember that you may have little to no regular contact with this person if you were hired. It’s the hiring manager who you want to pay particular attention to since you’ll actually be working for that person.The thing to remember with an interview is that it’s a two-way street:You’re trying to sell yourself to the employer.The employer should be trying to sell themselves to you, too.Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill but don’t ignore obvious signs that lead you to believe that the company you a

market. It would be absurd to use a name like 'HipHop BangBang Solutions'.

• A good way to test out your company name is to tell it to your friends and ask them if they remember it in a week.

Step 2: Website Design

Step 3: Website Marketing

A. Search Engine Optimization

For example:

• Build a content rich website: Search engine spiders and bots like websites filled with informative and relevant text and content.

• Keywords: Try to place as many keywords in the content of your home page as possible without losing the sense and aesthetics of the page.

• Make the site simple, easy to surf and navigate, and eye-catching.

• Keep your website updated with fresh content, new pages and information.

B. Free Advertising

Directories
You can also submit your site to web directories, which are databases of categorized listings of websites. Focus on directories that are popular and specialize on your industry.

Time Management & The Home-Based Business - Daily Habits Every Effective Leader Should Know
I had worked for someone else as an employee for my entire former career. I would wake up early in the morning, drive to work, put in 8, 9 or more hours, with an hour for lunch in the middle, and then come home. My day was scheduled out for me. I did this each day by habit. I was accountable to my boss, who expected me to be there at a certain time and perform my assigned duties. Not so for the home business entrepreneur.You started a home-based business to be personally and financially successful. Perhaps, like me, you were looking for some time freedom, desiring more time for yourself and family. As a home business entrepreneur, you are the boss. You don’t answer to anyone but yourself (or maybe your spouse!) You are responsible for your own results. If you work your business, you will reap the rewards; if you don’t... you know the saying.So, do you just wake up in the morning, go to your home office and start prospecting or marketing from sunup to sundown? Absolutely NOT! It is important for you to establish daily habits that allow you to work your business effectively and also enjoy the freedom that you were looking for.The main activities that effective leaders do each day can be grouped into a few categories. Create a schedule for yourself incorporating each of these activities for you will follow each day.Income Producing Activities: Consider the hours you will actually do the income producing activity of your business. This may include making phone calls to prospects, marketing, placing

rtant influences in determining the position of a website on search engine result pages.

For example:

• Build a content rich website: Search engine spiders and bots like websites filled with informative and relevant text and content.

• Keywords: Try to place as many keywords in the content of your home page as possible without losing the sense and aesthetics of the page.

• Make the site simple, easy to surf and navigate, and eye-catching.

• Keep your website updated with fresh content, new pages and information.

B. Free Advertising

Directories
You can also submit your site to web directories, which are databases of categorized listings of websites. Focus on directories that are popular and specialize on your industry.

Public Relations for Mayors of Cities
The Mayor of any city usually ends up taking some negative press when disgruntled citizens condemn their actions on some initiative, project or expenditure of city funds and resources. This fact is unavoidable as you cannot keep everyone happy all the time and the squeaky wheel getting the oil sometimes, simply cannot be done when there are more pressing and urgent issues to consider.Nevertheless, such a group of restless folks in the masses can cause some serious negative PR issues. Worse off if the media is looking for more chaos and controversy then you can be sure they will pick up the little issue and blow it out of proportion.There are many things a Mayor’s office can do to alleviate unneeded and disruptive minority groups. For instance taking all that energy and channeling it into a positive thing by having those folks join Mayors Committees to help with the area of grievance. Mayors should also host Mayor’s Business Roundtables to have the assistance of the small business people in town.There is no easy way to maintain a 100% trouble free term in office, but with a little extra public relations and community goodwill, it can be a lot smoother. Consider all this in 2006.

tising

Directories
You can also submit your site to web directories, which are databases of categorized listings of websites. Focus on directories that are popular and specialize on your industry.

Building links is not difficult, however, the challenge is to develop links that are relevant and complimentary to your business. You can join link exchange websites which are a venue for webmasters interested in building valuable links. Don’t exchange links with just any site though, relevancy is very important. Try to exchange links with sites that can be associated with your industry or that compliment your business. And stay away from sketchy sites such as online gambling sites and pornography sites. These will only cause you trouble. As well, you can do a web search for relevant businesses and simply contact them and suggest a link exchange (some sites may have a section with information pertaining to link exchanges). Check out the backward links (inbound links) of your top competitors. Find out what sites are linking to them, and then contact the valuable sites to participate in link exchanges.

Articles
If you are quite knowledgeable on your business’ industry, then publishing articles online is a good start to building a reputation for your site. You can submit articles to free submit directories (where others can download your article as content for their own sites, giving you full credit), online magazines, ezines, and websites relevant to your business.

C. Paid Advertising

Pay-Per-Advertising
a. Pay-Per-Click: Pay-per-click advertising consists of a search engine or directory that places your website in their database, and charges you a specified amount every time your website comes up in a search and is clicked on, thereby, generating traffic to your site. The amount of the fee is usually determined by bidding on keywords and ranking.

b. Pay-Per-Impression: Similar to the concept of pay-per-click advertising, advertisers pay the affiliate based on the number of consumers that view their promotion or ad.

c. Pay-Per-Sale: The advertisers pay the affiliate based on the number of consumers that make a purchase based on the direct result of the promotion.

d. Pay-Per-Lead: Advertiser pays for each sales lead generated from the direct result of a promotion. Leads include a viewer filling out a survey, form, downloading a demo, software, etc...

e. Pay-Per-E-mail: Similar to pay-per-lead advertising, pay-per-e-mail affiliates receive a commission for each consumer’s e-mail address they refer to a mailing list or newsletter.

Paid Directories
Some directories charge a fee, increased visibility is associated with a higher cost. If you choose to place your site in a paid directory listing, consider the offer carefully. Compare the price with other effective methods of advertising. Make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck.

Banners
A more popular marketing mechanism consists of banners (large strips) of advertisements that are specifically positioned on a web page in order to promote your website. Costs vary according to the placement of the ad on the web page and size of the banner. Try to advertise on websites that contain relevant content, receive a significant amount of traffic and have fair banner advertisement rates.

Ezines
Ezines (electronic magazines/newsletters published online or sent via e-mail) have been experiencing explosive growth in the past few years. There are thousands of ezines covering a vast number of topics. Considering that ezines cater to readers sincerely interested in the topic covered, you should get a higher response rate to your ads. For a new business, publishing your own ezine right away may be too overwhelming, therefore paying for exposure of your website in online magazines and through ezine ads may be your best bet. Ezines can provide you with valuable traffic at a smaller investment than banner ads. Ezine advertising is more likely to attract a significant response because the readers trust the editors and therefore trust the ads.

Step 4: Monitoring Your Site

Almost all server providers have counters and tools to monitor all the traffic your website attracts. You can find out where the traffic is coming from and the regions from which the visitors are originating, how many visitors have entered your site on a given day, how they entered, and how long they stayed to browse. You can learn about the demographics of your viewers and track trends and patterns. By gaining a better understanding of the popular pages on your site and your site’s overall performance, you can plan future development, and focus on specific aspects of your site. Depending on how precisely you wish to track your site’s success, you can also purchase software programs that do this as well.

The first few years of the birth of an e-commerce company are usually the make or break period. Revenues may be stagnant and expenses may seem overwhelming. It takes time, patience and determination. Sometimes you just need to take baby steps, then wait and pray.

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.casualarticles.com/article/43678/casualarticles-Starting-An-ECommerce-Business-Baby-Steps.html">Starting An E-Commerce Business: Baby Steps</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.casualarticles.com/article/43678/casualarticles-Starting-An-ECommerce-Business-Baby-Steps.html]Starting An E-Commerce Business: Baby Steps[/url]

Put T-shirts or polo-shirts in to Google and dozens of suppliers will be returned, but how do you decide who to buy from? Generally speaking, it's best to stick to the products from tried and tested manufactures. Companies such as Hanes, Fruit of the Loom and Gildan are all proven distribution outlets and you can view their catalogues online.

Which sounds more appealing, getting up in front of a group of strangers and talking, while they all sit there looking at you like a dog watching a ceiling fan... or gargling with Drano? It's no surprise how many would choose the Drano.

An article that shows sales managers how to help salespeople discern their useful/useless self talk in order to achieve breakthrough results.

Tags

Links

Casual Articles - Starting An E-Commerce Business: Baby Steps

Related Articles: