Casual Articles - Internet and Businesses Online

Computer Consulting: Spread the Word
Make sure your current computer consulting clients, friends, and family know what types of companies you work with, the types of things you do, and how much you would appreciate referrals from them.A lot of times, by asking the right kind of open-ended questions, you can be very pleasantly surprised when your computer consulting contacts start discussing something that evolves into a $10,000 or $15,000 services opportunity because they all of a sudden had a lightening bolt moment.What You May Hear“We have this woman in Accounting who is typing the same thing in three times over and over and over again. I wonder if there’s some way that you could set up links or do something in Access that that would eliminate that?” or “We have this crazy process where we’re still using this DOS-based 19.2 modem but we’ve heard there’s a web-based way to do this. Can you look into it and help us implement it?” This is a go

ad by someone who is not ready to buy a TV is actually worth. Remember, they haven’t come to Shopping.com. Shopping.com has come to them.

Keeping that in mind (the value of a click from my site vs. the value of a click from the Shopping.com site), all of the controversy makes perfect sense.

Let’s start with the auditing fiasco. They told a bunch of publishers how much oney they made from people clicking on the ads, then decided to take back some of it. They claimed to be taking back money from clicks from countries where the products couldn’t be shipped and accounting for click fraud. While this is annoying, I can understand it, though I’m not quite sure how they could examine every click and figur

Diversity; It's a Leadership Issue
Diversity is a popular management topic in many countries and companies. A wide of sweep resources in HR and management time is devoted to diversity in large organisations, especially government, educational and global organisations.In a publication by the European Commission in November 2003, "fixing" diversity is reported as having significant benefits and costs. Benefits include reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, better attraction and retention of talented people and improved innovation and creativity.Costs and obstacles to "fixing" diversity are reported to include legal restrictions in holding of diversity data, difficulties in changing organisational culture and lack of awareness amongst organisations of the content, benefits, rationale and mechanisms of diversity policies.From personal experience and researching the topic I have found that in many cases diversity is equated to equal opportuni

All I have to say is WOW. I haven’t seen this kind of vitriol since the last Democratic Convention, and all directed toward Chitika, a startup ad company that was supposed to be the Google killer. Their crime? Cutting people’s revenue checks after they’ve earned the money. Not a great PR move. And it looks like there are more problems with what, on the surface, looks like a great idea. I have to admit I don’t understand how anyone (including Chitika) makes any money with their revenue model.

Darren Rouse of problogger.net, who I respect immensely (and who makes a couple hundred grand a year blogging), has really flogged the heck out of Chitika. Right from the start I had trouble understanding how they were going to make any money.

Chitika Mini Malls allow you to sell specific products (merchandise) within the pages of your website or blog. The ads boast the best price for a specific product, and then allow the user to click to (supposedly) buy the product. They also include tabs for search and other functionality built right into the banner-like ad.

Publishers can choose to show ads by keyword (they pick the words), or by page context like Google (having both ads in contextual mode on your site violates Google’s terms of service).

Apparently Chitika has deals with companies like Shopping.com, Ubid and others to share in clickthroughs. Or they may just go through channeladvisor.com, a syndicator of content for the major shopping sites (which explains why they all have the same content).

From my comfortable chair I can see where the trouble begins. When someone comes to Shopping.com they’re looking for something, whether it is duck boots from L.L. Bean or a battery charger from Sears, and they’re looking for the best price, presumably so they can buy the product (it’s not called just looking around.com. It’s shopping.com.

So Bean or Sears doesn’t mind paying Shopping.com fifteen cents or a quarter or whatever to get the person to press the buy button, because they know the person is ready to put down the credit card number.

I’m not sure moving that model out to my web site is going to pay off in a pay-per-click model. Back when we did CASIE-award winning (5 awards actually) campaigns for John Hancock, the goal was to capture someone having a specific life event such as having a baby, marriage, graduation, etc., and get them to Hancock. The presumption was that they would be ready to buy. Chances are if they saw a banner that said Ready to tie the knot? Are you covered? or some such thing and they clicked, they were ready to buy, and it would have been worth paying for the click.

Shopping.com is similar. If you’re there, the life event is a new TV (not quite as profound as marriage, but important just the same).

I’m not sure how much a click on the Best price for a TV MiniMall ad by someone who is not ready to buy a TV is actually worth. Remember, they haven’t come to Shopping.com. Shopping.com has come to them.

Keeping that in mind (the value of a click from my site vs. the value of a click from the Shopping.com site), all of the controversy makes perfect sense.

What is the Difference Between Link Farms and Web Directory
There are a number of key differences between link farms and web directories. The most prominent difference between the two is that web directories are valued by the search engines, while link farms are considered to be spammy. Link farms are generally built by webmasters who wish to cheat the search engines. They try to jam a bunch of links on a page with the hope that it will rank well. In most cases, it doesn't, and the search engines may ban websites that feature this. Web directories are much more legitimate. They are designed to help people find what they are looking for on the web.A web directory could be likened to the traditional yellow phone book directory. With a web directory, you have a bunch of websites that are placed in various categories. When you click on the category page, you will have a list of websites. Each website will have a title that comes in the form of a link, and they will all have descriptio

re going to make any money.

Publishers can choose to show ads by keyword (they pick the words), or by page context like Google (having both ads in contextual mode on your site violates Google’s terms of service).

Shopping.com is similar. If you’re there, the life event is a new TV (not quite as profound as marriage, but important just the same).

Keeping that in mind (the value of a click from my site vs. the value of a click from the Shopping.com site), all of the controversy makes perfect sense.

Dropshipping - 5 Tips For Finding a Good Dropshipping Wholesaler
The quality of the wholesale distributors you choose to use for dropshipping is a major determining factor in the chances of online business success. This is especially important if you are operating alone and selling your products online either through an online store or through auctions. Wholesale distributor reliability is vital for the growth of your business, and even more so if you are in a competitive market. So, let’s look at some criteria to use for finding a good dropship distributor or manufacturer.After finding a list of potential distributors, either online or offline with something like newspaper ads, the next step will be to evaluate the pros and cons of the dropshipping suppliers.1. Well Established ReputationA good reputation will imply reliability and honest. If you do not live in the same country or state as a particular wholesale distributor, you might not be able to meet them in p

or of content for the major shopping sites (which explains why they all have the same content).

Shopping.com is similar. If you’re there, the life event is a new TV (not quite as profound as marriage, but important just the same).

Keeping that in mind (the value of a click from my site vs. the value of a click from the Shopping.com site), all of the controversy makes perfect sense.

Real Estate Postcards: Six Ways to Improve Them
As an agent or broker, you probably already know the benefits of using postcards to market yourself. Postcard marketing — a.k.a. direct mail marketing — is quick, affordable, versatile, and easy to target and test.What you may not know is that you can often improve your postcard marketing results just by making minor adjustments to your approach. Here are seven such adjustments.1. Increase the Value of Your Offer If you're relying on the "free consultation" to motivate your prospects, you need to rethink your approach. The free consultation fails as an offer because it's not really an offer. Your prospects view the consultation as part of your job, not any kind of bonus.The same goes for the comparative market analysis, or CMA. There may have been a time when the consultation and CMA got people excited, but that time has passed.So what do you do?Simple. You offer something unique an

to pay off in a pay-per-click model. Back when we did CASIE-award winning (5 awards actually) campaigns for John Hancock, the goal was to capture someone having a specific life event such as having a baby, marriage, graduation, etc., and get them to Hancock. The presumption was that they would be ready to buy. Chances are if they saw a banner that said Ready to tie the knot? Are you covered? or some such thing and they clicked, they were ready to buy, and it would have been worth paying for the click.

Shopping.com is similar. If you’re there, the life event is a new TV (not quite as profound as marriage, but important just the same).

Keeping that in mind (the value of a click from my site vs. the value of a click from the Shopping.com site), all of the controversy makes perfect sense.

Business Planning
In the book Alice In Wonderland, there is a scene where Alice comes to a fork in the road, she looks down the right road as far as she can see, and sees nothing. She looks down the left road as far as she can see, and sees nothing. In the center of the fork is a large oak tree with the Cheshire Cat grinning a grin as big as a grin can be. Not knowing which way to take the fork, she asks the Cheshire Cat, “Which road should I go?” his reply; “which road do you want to go?” and Alice says “I do not rightly know which road to go.” The Cheshire Cat’s response to her was, “if you do not know which road you want to go, then it makes no difference which road you go.” The moral of the scene is: If you do not have a Goal set, or a direction to go, it makes no difference which way you go, nor will you know when you get there.Planning and goal setting are essential parts of every business. A “Plan of Action” must be establ

ad by someone who is not ready to buy a TV is actually worth. Remember, they haven’t come to Shopping.com. Shopping.com has come to them.

Keeping that in mind (the value of a click from my site vs. the value of a click from the Shopping.com site), all of the controversy makes perfect sense.

So they threw out a few clicks, right. Big deal. But here’s where Chitika crossed the Rubicon as far as I’m concerned — they decided that they were going to filter out what they called curiosity clicks, which they loosely defined as clicks that are not likely to result in a sale.

Wait a minute here…no one said anything about sales. As I mention in my previous article about Pay-per-click advertising, the publishers responsibility in the pay-per-click model is to get the user to click. The rest of the chain is then out of the publisher’s hands.

Chitika has basically created its own model here, and I call it Pay-per-selected-click. They are, in effect, deciding that some clicks are more valuable than others. Specifically they are saying that clicks resulting in sales are better than clicks not resulting in sales. Viola! They have invented Pay-per-Sale (or Pay-per-Action for those semanticists in the audience).

Other people call it bullshit. Actually so do I. I think it is dishonest to tell publishers that you will pay them for every click and then decide which clicks to pay for. That’s like telling the lottery agent that you’ll buy the tickets now for $1 each, but you’re coming back after the drawing to return the ones that didn’t win for your dollar back.

Put another way, if you’re giving away 70% of what you earn (60% to the publisher and 10% to his referring publishers), you can’t be throwing around dollar bills. And if your model is stupid (which this one clearly is), you need to pull some hocus-pocus man-behind-the-curtain give-with-one-hand-and-take-away-with-the-other kind of magic.

The most amusing part of this has to be picturing the look on the marketing weenie’s faces at L.L. Bean and Sears when the bill for a million clicks comes in and they find that they made four sales.

The bottom line here is that in this context (selling someone merchandise) a click from Shopping.com has more value than a click from Bobsblog.com.

Chitika turned me down for an account. They said that I didn’t meet the qualifications. Darren Rouse says that web sites that are product centered. Chitika says the same thing.

This proves my point even more. If a website is product centered (in other words reviews computers or exhalts the virtues of a Palm Pilot), then the fact that you are on that site means you have some interest in the product. Your Chitika MiniMall is the Buy It Now for that product. This means that there won’t be as many curiosity clicks, and Chitika won’t take as much of your earnings back.

You are getting subjected to Pay-Per-Action criteria with Pay-Per-Click rewards. If you want to see how publishers are

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Finding a balance between work and personal life is one of the most dominant issues of our time, as most of you must have experienced. Time and again we find ourselves struggling and stressing to keep up with the demands of both areas. Often, the advice given in such cases is to draw borders and limits between the conflicting demands of work and personal life. However, these two aspects of our lives do not necessarily have to be on conflicting terms. Rather, they may even enhance and strengthen each other. The article offers some creative ideas to achieve exactly that goal.

To have a really happy workforce, you got to do more than pass out bonuses and angpows. You need to make work fun. Science opens to us the book of nature, while laughter and fun open the doors to human creativity.

5 easy ways to heavily boost your traffic to your blog with good insider information. Find out what experts do to increase traffic and to make sales.

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