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By Phyllis Zimbler Miller in Featured

If you want to take advantage of the opportunities on the microblogging platform Twitter, start off doing thing correctly.

Let’s look at how you join:

You join for free at www.twitter.com and here are some important tips about signing up:

Choose your username carefully. Although you can now change it easily, you should think about how you want to represent yourself or your business on Twitter.

The username you choose may also impact how you get Twitter followers. (People follow you on Twitter in contrast to friending you on Facebook or connecting with you on LinkedIn.)

Upload a clear head shot photo of yourself (preferably without your pet, child or girlfriend/boyfriend). Again, the photo you use can impact how you get Twitter followers.

Put your own name – even if you write tweets for your company – in the field where you are asked for your name. And, once again, this can impact how you get Twitter followers.

Write a good 160-character bio and include one URL. For the fourth time, what you write here can impact how you get Twitter followers.

Why can all these four “simple” steps impact getting Twitter followers? Because people on Twitter want to interact with real people, not companies, even if the real people are representing major corporations. Thus it’s important to represent yourself truthfully and as a real person.

Let’s move on to the next step:

As soon as you do the above, enter two tweets so that people considering following you can see the type of tweets you plan on writing. Therefore, give some thought to how you want to present yourself.

Now you can start following other people:

To find people who tweet about subjects that interest you, enter search terms in the search box on your home page. Once you are taken to a page with tweets mentioning the term, click on a username to go to that person’s profile and decide if you want to follow him or her.

If yes, simply click the FOLLOW button – that’s all there is to it. And if at a later date you no longer want to follow this person, just return to his/her profile page and click the FOLLOWING button to unfollow.

What happens next is that many of these people will follow you back, and you have begun to build your Twitter community.

You may be saying to yourself: Why should it matter to me how many people are following me?”

The answer to this is that Twitter is an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool if used correctly. (Many people on Twitter do not use it correctly.) The more people who are interested in what you’re about and who follow you, the more of a target audience you have connected with on Twitter.

One more thing that you do NOT want to do:

Once you are on Twitter you will be followed by people who will offer you all kinds of software programs to quickly add a large number of Twitter followers. You do NOT want to do this.

First, you can get kicked off Twitter for spamming. Second, you want to grow your Twitter community organically by following and being followed by people who are interested in the subjects that interest you.

In conclusion, do not worry if some of this information seems somewhat confusing. Twitter is deceptively simple. Because it is only 140 characters (sort of like IMing) people assume that there’s nothing “to it.” Take my word that there is a very great deal “to it.”

I predict that, if you keep an open mind and learn Twitter gradually, there will come a day when you say to yourself: “I can’t believe I ever got along without it.”

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. If you liked this article, you’re going to love her free report on “The Top 3 Internet Marketing Elements” – download the report now from www.TeachMeInternetBusiness.com

By Bill Platt in Featured

Everyday it seems, people are asking me the optimum numbers of inbound links they need to acquire for their website in order to rank well in Google.

My answer is going to seem a little flip, but it is the honest, best answer.

Answer: You need more inbound links – of equal or higher quality – than what your competitors have.

Albert Einstein argued that any mathematical formula that required pages of calculations did not contain within it “the mind of God”.

So when Albert Einstein developed E=mc2, then Einstein had fulfilled the promise of a simple formula that could encompass the brilliance of God.

When people wonder as to how many inbound links they might need to acquire in order to rank in the Top 4 of Google’s search results or even the Top 10 of Google’s SERPs, they are generally hoping that someone will be able to give them a numeric answer, so that they know whether they can afford to undertake the process or not.

I understand the WHY of the question, but there is no canned answer that will work for everyone.

Remember, your competitor may be asking the same question and undertaking the same processes as you are, trying to accomplish the same goal.

No one can truly begin to understand the answer to this question, until one has take the time to do an Inbound Link Comparison Analysis of all of your competitors in the Top 10 spots of Google’s SERPs.

  • You need to look at the Top 10 listings in Google for a particular keyword.
  • You need to do backlink checks for all ten URLs in Google’s search listings, and you need to check those numbers across a variety of sources, including Google, Yahoo and any other tool you can find to do a check. (Google and Yahoo both tend to understate the actual link counts. While Yahoo will show you more than what Google does, they also show a number of “no consequence” links in their results.)
  • You need to look at the quality of a few of the pages that offer links to the URLs in the search results.

This is not an easy process to undertake. I have done it before, but the best you can hope for is a “snapshot” of what is out there, and therefore, what you need to accomplish.

Note: If Wikipedia turns up in your search query, few people with small budgets will ever be able to dislodge Wikipedia in the search results. What they make up for in a small number of inbound links, they more than make up for with links from dozens or hundreds of PR4, PR5 and PR6 pages. Wikipedia is the king of Internal Linking, and they use that to a great degree to rank extraordinarily high in Google’s search listings.

Your analysis should seek to uncover how many links a page has to it.

As a general rule of thumb, Google will show you less than 1% of the existing number of links for a web page. Yahoo will sometimes show closer to 5% of the existing number of links for a web page, but they will not show you the highest quality of those links.

So, as you strive to gain a “snapshot” picture of the playing field, you want to take Google’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 100. Then you want to take Yahoo’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 20, then cut the number in half to acknowledge the number of worthless crap links they have in their database. Once you have achieved these two numbers, then I tend to call the truth “somewhere in the middle”.

With your “somewhere in the middle” number in hand, then you need to look at the quality of links to a few of those search listings, to get an idea of whether those links exist on higher quality pages or simply junk pages.

If those links are on junk pages, then the goal could be achieved by just working the numbers. But if there are a lot of high PageRank pages in the mix, then whatever number is in your hand, should be multiplied, perhaps 100-fold, to overcome the quality of pages that link to your competitors.

If you get the idea that my simple formula leads to a complicated answer, then you are right.

All of the numbers that I have included in my sample formula are based on rough speculation, as the “snapshot” offers you your best hope of understanding the challenge in front of you.

While the number of inbound links may be relatively easy to determine, the link quality is a factor that is really hard to pin down.

  • If you determine that you only need 300 inbound links to rank with the big boys, you may be right.
  • Your 300 inbound links number should also be quantified against the number of links that Google will count worthy, so you may need 1200 links to get 300 links that Google will deem worthy. This calculation depends more on the “quality of your content”, rather than the “quantity of your content”.
  • When all is said and done and your 300 Google-worthy links have not yet put you on page one, then you know that the quality of the links pointing at your competitors is greater than the quality of the links pointing to you.

If you were hoping for an easy answer, I am sorry that I could not help you with that.

But with this explanation of the challenge, you may be better prepared to answer the big question, the question that is really on your mind:

=== Are my hopes of achieving good rankings in Google within my reach?

I tend to throw “worry” to the wind and just start working. I don’t worry if I can afford to do it or not. I simply start doing, and I know that in one month, one year or five, I will have built enough value in my website that my competitors are going to be the ones who are trying to figure out if they can unseat me!

Bill Platt has provided SEO services since 2004. In 2009, he transformed his SEO service, into one that helps people defeat negative search results in Google. By improving the rank of positive website reviews in the search results, negative search listings begin to disappear from the public eye. If you would like to learn more about how Bill’s Reputation Management SEO service can help your business, visit: http://911reputation.com/ Bill has also owned http://thePhantomWriters.com/ since 2001.

Read more articles written by: Bill Platt

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

Web-2.0The Cluetrain Manifesto asserts that “Markets are Conversations.” The Manifesto is a document published in 1999 and 10 years later is still considered to be an outstanding treatise on the Internet phenomenon – in regards to the impact and opportunities of Internet and web technology on the modern businessman. Nowhere has this assertion been borne out more than in the complex, fascinating world of Social Media Marketing (SMM).

By John Sylvester in Featured

In a spin-off to the ongoing saga to restrict access to newspaper publishing on the web, Lord Mandelson, the British business secretary, set April 2011 as the start date in a campaign to block and criminalise illegal online filesharing in the UK.

In all honesty, it is fair enough that people should pay for what they watch, listen to and read, and Rupert Murdoch (newspaper magnate) has already launched a scathing attack on the BBC for providing free news on the internet. Now, in a recent development, Lord Mandelson has given notice in a speech at the British government’s digital creative industries conference, that digital downloaders, who are considered persistent offenders, could be shut down and face criminal charges with fines of up to £50,000.

A report published in June of this year, Digital Britain, covered areas including illegal filesharing. The report itself did not lay out precisely what legislation was required but the British government has called for a massive 70% reduction in online piracy by April 2012. Following that, it proposes a more draconian law would be introduced, saying the government would be launching a massive crackdown on illegal internet filesharing.

Mr Mandelson has unveiled the British government’s campaign against digital piracy, which will apparently start with warning letters. Should downloaders persist beyond the first three, it would lead to the government blocking their internet access with the option of hefty fines, including parents if their wayward children’s online activities are deemed to include illegal online piracy.

This three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy is the British government’s latest offering in its digital economy bill due to be passed in April next year, with the strategy of “legislate and enforce” to protect content providers’ intellectual property rights.

The Guardian’s technology section quoted Mr Mandelson as saying: “It must become clear that the days of consequence-free widespread online infringement are over. Technical measures will be a last resort and I have no expectation of mass suspensions resulting.”

The piece then went on to further quote him as saying: “Persistent illegal filesharers will be monitored for the first 12 months. If illegal filesharing has not dropped by 70% by April 2011, then cutting off people’s internet connections could be introduced three months later, from the summer of that year.”

It looks as if Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, is adding Internet to his long-tail portfolio and is now toughing it out with the nation’s filesharers with this draconian plan for those suspected of online piracy.

But, according to thinkbroadband.com: “If fines of £50,000 are ever levied for illegal filesharing then the likelihood of people going to prison for non-payment seems high. Who has £50,000 lying around and potentially parents could be served the fine if their children are underage. Suspension of an internet account would also seem to go against the whole idea of Digital Britain, which is to get people online and encourage those who’ve never used the internet…”

It may not have been Rupert Murdoch’s blistering attacks on the BBC after all then, as it was reported in the Daily Mail, an English anti-Labour government newspaper, although later denied by a spokesman, that: “Lord Mandelson ordered officials to draw up the draconian regulations days after dinner with David Geffen, who founded the Asylum record label which signed Bob Dylan. The pair dined on 7 August at the Rothschild family villa on Corfu, while Mandelson was holidaying on the Greek island.”

Critics have described this impending legislation as a “gross attack on civil liberties”, and that the proposals for tackling illegal filesharing are far too harsh, with a very real risk of derailing Digital Britain. However, it can safely be assumed that hardcore pirates will simply find other ways of downloading material, employing electronic cloak-and-dagger tactics to get music and film into the UK and on to their laptops.

With newspapers going behind paywalls next month, the sword of Damocles now hangs over free online music and film, as the business secretary cum digital overlord plans, according to the Daily Mail, to “criminalise an estimated seven million people in the UK who regularly but illicitly download music and film”.

In the same article and in a related development, the Daily Mail reported that the Pirate Party, which won a Swedish European Parliament seat in June on a platform of legal filesharing, announced it would be standing in the general election.

It is going to be a very interesting digital soap opera to observe.

John Sylvester is the media director of V9 Design & Build (http://www.v9designbuild.com) and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies.

By Willie Crawford in Featured

For online marketers who have been around for a while, it’s no secret that email marketing “is not what it use to be!”

For many online marketers, conversions rates are a mere fraction of what they use to be. At the same time, there are a few marketers that I’ve chatted with who have experienced no significant drop in conversions. These are all marketers who have built incredible subscriber loyalty over the years.

For many online marketers, the biggest problem is email deliverability. Their email is simply not getting through. Email is being filtered so heavily today that often less than 20% of a large ezine mailing gets delivered.

There are things you can do to improve your email deliverability, such as run it through a spam checker prior to sending it out. Top mailing list management systems, such as http://ProfitAutomation.com , have built in systems that allow you to grade an email against the Spam Assassin database prior to sending it. If your email scores higher than a 2, I personally would revise it to lower the score.

I’ve talked to friends over a year ago, who often confided in me that they sometimes sent out emails and got absolutely NO response. They wondered if anyone even received the emails or read them.

Many savvy marketers also realized that a business totally dependent upon email was not a very solid business. They realized that what they really needed was a database that contained not only names and email addresses, but physical mailing addresses. That way, if something dramatic ever did happen in the world of email, they could just shift their marketing to direct mail, and still be in business. This is one of the reasons that you started seeing some online marketers offering loss leaders on CD or DVD. It gave them the perfect tool (excuse) to build out their databases. They knew that email could someday go the way of fax broadcasts.

Some of my in-the-know friends have also shared with me that many ISP’s now monitor things such as email delivery rates, bounce rates, and open rates. They use readily available data, and if a given ISP or third party list host had a dismal record, they may block ALL email from that source.

That’s pretty scary. I was also told that a few well-known list management providers were having emails coming off their servers BLOCKED, or “black holed.”

If ISPs are tapping into database that reveal which mail servers send out a lot of mail that has very low open rates, for example, and blocking email from those servers, that does very well spell the slow death of some email marketers… unless they move their list to other platforms.

Ok, so I just painted a pretty dismal picture for some marketers.

When I was in the military, my bosses always told me that they wanted the truth from me. They insisted that I not “sugar-coat” the facts. However, they also told me not to bring them problems, without also bringing them viable solutions.

Solutions to the email deliverability issue are out there. For example, paid “sender verification” is one that is often suggested.

One that I’ve looked at many times over the years is some type of direct-to-desktop solution. That’s one where your subscribers install tools that allow your communications to tap into technologies not even dependent upon email.

The objection always brought up when discussing direct-to- desktop applications, is that there’s only so much desktop real-estate, so a person can only subscribe to so many of these independent channels.

Another solution that I like very much is building your list on a hosted platform, so that communications take place within the system.

A good example of this can be seen on the social networking site Sokule, pronounced “so cool.” The Sokule community is built on a platform that looks and feels a lot like Twitter, except that it’s built for marketers, so you are encouraged to market on the platform. In fact, there are several built-in features that allow members to monetize their community membership.

While members of many social networking communities tend to de-emphasize getting lots of followers, Sokule is different. Sokule seems to encourage you to get as many followers (called “trackers”) as you can in two ways:

  1. They have a quasi-currency, called “sokens” that you can offer to other members to reward them for following you. You earn these sokens, and then you offer them to community members as a reward for following you. In a way, you can buy followers.
  2. They allow upgraded members to direct message ALL of their followers a maximum of once every three day. That means that in a very real way, when you build a following on Sokule, you ARE building a list.

When you set up your Sokule account, you enter three of your areas of interest. This allows others to search the database for members with like interest, whom they can then track (follow). In theory, this means that when you send out a direct message, your message should be going to people interested in the same topic.

Just as with an email list, you need to respect your trackers on Sokule, and provide genuine value to the relationship.

To check out Sokule, visit my profile page at: http://Sokule.com/postit/williec

There you can see how you can personalize your profile and monetize it. The links that you’ll notice on the left side of the page are to five of my pet websites. There are also links on the left side of the page that promote Clickbank products. Those links are coded with MY Clickbank ID.

My old military bosses would be proud of me today. Yes, I came bearing bad news. Email marketing as it once was is dying an agonizing death. However, I also did as my old bosses taught me and presented you with a viable, proven solution.

In future articles, I’ll share with you some more solutions to “the email problem.” For now, check out Sokule. Sign up for a free account and take it for a test drive. It’s quicker to do that at:” http://Sokule.com/williec The key to survival in business, just as it was for me in the military is to be aware of and adapt to changing circumstances. That’s something you’re now ready to do.

Willie Crawford has been marketing online for 13 years, and used article marketing most of that time (writing over 1500 articles). His favorite tools for automatically distributing his articles, videos, podcasts, and press releases is the automated submission site: http://EasyPushButtonTraffic.com

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

When it comes to the web, information is king. Indeed, the web itself is information, a massive collection of articles, videos, blogs, news stories and photographs trying to convey a message to various audiences scattered around the world. The big sensation over the last year has been Twitter, a system built around condensing information to a mere 140 characters and broadcasting it out to interested users with a minimum of frills and features.

YouTube, a site where literally anybody can upload their videos for the appreciation of others, became the fourth most popular site on the Internet in less than a year. Compare that to newspapers and television, which both have been experiencing decreasing viewership in recent years. People need, want, and will seek out every conceivable sort of information, and the Internet is the place to find it.

Who Wants To Know?

Information isn’t just of use to the casual browser or dedicated auction enthusiast, however. Equally and increasingly interested are the very people posting content to the many pages on the web. Who is visiting which pages? How much traffic is your site getting, and how does it measure up against traffic going to similar sites? What has changed since you put up the big new advertising system last year? Necessity being the mother of invention, this increasing craving for varied and precise forms of information has led to the steady growth of a field called Web Analytics.

What Are You Looking At?

Put simply, Web Analytics is a system of study dedicated to collecting, measuring, and reporting on web and Internet data. This general idea breaks down further into two broad disciplines. The first is on-site analytics, which concerns itself with the journey of each user to a website, and is of primary concern to the owners of that site. It records information ranging from a record of which pages are being visited to a comparison of which pages garner more purchases from visitors. Off-site analytics focuses on information on the Internet as a whole, such as what websites more people are visiting, and what sites are being talked about most frequently. Both methods seek to answer the key question for any website operator – what are people looking at?

But What Does It All Mean?

Proper Web Analytics goes a step further than simple data collection, however. It also concerns itself with interpretation of the data in a context that allows the site owner to take appropriate steps. Let’s use the advertising campaign mentioned earlier as an example. Simple web measurement would be the collection of how many hits and purchases the site gathered before and after the campaign. A serious analytic comparison would explain how quickly purchases picked up after the change, what products and portions of the site drew more traffic as a result, and which pages remained unaffected. In short, web measurement is the gathering of the data; Web Analytics is the comparison and interpretation of that data.

The importance of the analytics field to the modern site owner can be observed in the sheer volume of material available on the subject. Sites offer free programs allowing users to set their own metrics, and others can be purchased, offering extra features and a professional interface. Hardcover and electronic format books have been published dealing with the material, and people have formed associations for the purpose of standardizing Web Analytics methodology and terms.

There is even a Web Analytics conference, the E-metrics summit, held in Santa Barbara, California and London, England each year. Going even further, there are listed job offerings in the field that offer salaries approaching $100,000 a year. Clearly this is not a passing fad, but a serious, vital step for any website interested not just in drawing an audience, but keeping it.

It’s All About Information

Of course this all begs the question – how does a user get started. Moreover, to what degree should they seek to implement Web Analytic tools and techniques? Perhaps a bit counter-intuitively, the quest for information begins with information. Site owners know what they want to accomplish with their sites, be it promoting a specific product or generating an audience for geopolitical discussions in a casual atmosphere. This information is the best place to start because it allows the user to begin understanding what information will help them pursue their goal.

For example, if a page is intended to promote an e-book series, then the user wants to know what information will help them do that promotion. They can then look for analytic tools that will tell them what pages are more successful at selling e-books, and what techniques are less successful.

Taking the time to sit down and think through the purpose that analytic information is ultimately intended to accomplish will make the search easier, and more fruitful from the beginning. With this basic framework established, the next step is the web itself. A simple web search on ‘Web Analytics’ or ‘Web Analytics for beginners’ will return a substantial amount of information. From there users can locate articles, videos, and e-books that will help them make the decisions they need to make their websites successful.

Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

By Bill Platt in Featured

googleYou know, if there are listings in Google’s search results that are hurting your business, you might think that there is nothing you can do about that. But let me assure you that given the will and the desire, there is plenty you can do about those search engine results that may be hurting your business.

So many people look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a game of influencing the keywords that are important to their business, but they don’t realize that SEO can also be used to diminish the negatives in the search results.

By Amanda OBrien in Featured

If you’ve spent any great length of time studying auctions on eBay you may have noticed discrepancies between identical items selling at wildly different prices. There are many potential reasons for this such as ending an auction at a bad time, a title that doesn’t really describe the item in question or an unrealistic starting bid dissuading people from getting into the auction spirit. All of these traits demonstrate a person that doesn’t know how to sell things on eBay. However, these traits can easily be mastered with practice and with research, making your auctions the ones that sell for more than your rivals.

One particular way in which to improve your auctions to make your items sell for a higher price is to spend a considerable amount of time on perfecting your item descriptions. The description of an item up for auction on eBay tells a potential buyer everything that they need to know about said item.

They expect to find all of the details including the condition of the item, any faults or failings with it and an accurate and comprehensively detailed description of it.

You aren’t alone when you are selling items on eBay. Even with a niche market there are likely to be other sellers competing for your customers, therefore you need to create item descriptions that are going to stand out from the crowd. Let’s consider a few handy tips that could help to promote your descriptions to the top of the class to aid you in mastering how to sell things on eBay.

  • Avoid overly garish colours. Although you want your description to be eye-catching, too many overly bright colours could actually put a buyer off your auction instead of the opposite effect. Instead concentrate on using bold, italics and underline to help to bring attention to relevant sections of your description.
  • Be detailed in your description. Include as much information as you can get your hands on with regard to the produce that you are selling. Not only will this provide your consumers with all that they need to know but it will also label you as an authority on the type of item that you are selling. Once your buyers have established that you know what you are talking about they are far more likely to come back to you.
  • Check for spelling and grammatical errors. Don’t ever submit a listing to eBay without having proofread it. Ideally write your description in a word processor first to catch any spelling errors.
  • Be persuasive but not over-salesy. In your description you don’t need to convince viewers that their life will end if they don’t purchase your product. Instead you need to appeal to the need that the item will fill, subtley persuading them that this purchase will make their life easier, better or more entertaining depending on the item.

Mastering item descriptions is one of the key elements to learninhow to sell things ebay,ebay selling,sell on ebay,sell stuff on ebay,powersellers secrets,make money on ebayg how to sell things on eBay. Remember that practice makes perfect, in no time at all you will be able to increase your sales through excellent descriptions.

Amanda O’Brien is a successful eBay Powerseller and author of ‘The 2,500 Per Week eBay Powersellers Secrets’ home study course. Want to learn more about starting an eBay business or simply want to improve your eBay sales? Claim your free eBay Selling Secrets Report at http://www.powersellerpod.co.uk

By Bill Platt in Featured

I have been providing advertising services to online businesses since 2000. I have helped many people become successful online through the use of my services.

Too often, I only hear from people on the phone after they have lost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to launch their new online business ventures. They call me when they have just a few dollars left. I sometimes wish people would have found me first, so that I could have helped them find real success, instead of heartache.

Beware Of The Charlatans

Before you consider spending any large chunk of cash, please be aware of those who are preying upon the Internet newcomers.

I know companies selling cookie-cutter websites for tens of thousands of dollars, and those cookie-cutter websites have never helped anyone achieve any kind of success online.

If you are buying a website that is selling products available on thousands of websites, it will be extremely difficult for you to stand out among the crowd.

I know that these cookie-cutter sites are attractive, because they have the products, the shopping cart, and the fulfillment systems built in, but you are still one of thousands of sites displaying the exact same kind of products for the exact same prices. You are only one in a huge wilderness of sites that might look different, but are exactly the same under the hood.

In these cases, the only website owner who profits is the guy who is selling the cookie-cutter website and handling the product fulfillment for the customers.

The guy selling the site wins in three ways: 1. Selling the cookie-cutter website for 10 grand; 2. Filling the product orders and collecting his wholesale fees; and 3. He gets to capture the email and mailing addresses of people who buy products from the cookie-cutter sites.

Beware Of The Cost Cutters

If you are selling any kind of hard-product (a product that must be shipped to the customer), be aware of the price comparison websites, such as http://Nextag.com/ where consumers can find the product they want to buy, then compare prices on that particular product across hundreds of websites.

You might be the one providing the best information about the product, only to ensure that your lowest price competitor gets the sale.

It is tough selling hard products online for this very reason, unless you are an exclusive distributor of such a product or no other companies have shown an interest in selling that kind of product.

Beware Of Import/Export

Before diving off into buying products from China to resell in the United States, you need to be aware of the laws governing the importation of certain product types.

There are certain products that the Chinese Wholesale sites would be happy to sell to you. And at the same time, the U.S. Customs Office would be happy to seize those products at the border, due to import restrictions.

If the U.S. Customs seizes your shipment, your investment may be lost forever.

You should know what you can import and what you can export. Know the facts, before spending your money arranging large product shipments into the United States. http://Customs.gov/ is a good place to start to learn about importing products into the U.S.

Beware Of Bad Business Advice

If you have ever heard that online business is different than offline business, please take some time to understand what that actually means.

Primarily, it means that I do not have to have an office on Main Street USA in order to do business online. I can run my business out of my house, if I so desire.

Beyond that difference, both methods of doing business are exactly the same.

The rules that govern the profitability of a business are exactly the same.

You must earn more than you spend to make a profit, and what you pay yourself is an expense.

Beware of Those Who Are In The Business Of Selling Lies

There are tons of people online who prey on people like you.

The one that immediately comes to mind is the Internet Marketing guru who says that you can hire ghost writers for $5 an article, and that is all you should need to spend.

I provide ghost writing services, and I cannot get good content for anywhere near $5 per article.

What you usually get for $5 is stolen from someone else, or it looks like it was written by a second grader.

The thing that is so ironic about that claim is that the gurus saying that you should only pay $5 for an article are usually paying $250 to $500 to have their articles written. And they would never tell you WHO writes their articles, because finding and keeping good help is tough, even online.

I can get decent articles written for you, for well under $250, in fact, for under $100 and sometimes for under $50, depending on if I am doing the writing or my writers are doing the writing.

It is important for you to understand that awesome writers can typically earn you an awesome Return On Investment (ROI).

When you find those awesome writers, you need to pay them what they require to keep them on your payroll, and you certainly do not want to share their name with another, in the off-chance that they decide that they would prefer to work for the other guy instead of you.

It is just bizarre to me that the big Internet Marketing gurus are telling you that you should never pay more than $5 an article, when I know for a fact that many of them are paying $250 to $500 an article to have their own stuff written.

You know what this actually boils down to?

Those gurus are not telling you what you need to know. They are telling you what you want to know.

Shame on them.

Just Be Careful Out There

The Internet is full of fraudsters looking to get your money and steal your your dreams.

So be careful not to become a victim of the Internet Marketing dream.

Many of my customers have taken the time to learn how to be successful, and they are. I have several clients who earn 7-figures a year from their online marketing endeavors.

If you learn the necessary work processes that you will need to do, offer a product or service people actually want or need, and you follow through with good advertising and customer service, you can be successful too.

Unfortunately, most people will blow their bankroll, before they figure out what it was that they were doing wrong. And then it is too late, because they no longer have the resources to make anything happen.

Bill Platt has been providing article marketing services since 2001, including article ghost writing and article distribution services, through his website at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/ You can download Bill’s free ebook titled, “Article Marketing: Beyond the Basics” on his blog. You can also listen to Article Marketing Tips and Tutorials at: http://ArticleMarketingConceptsRadio.com/

By Jerry Bader in Featured

brand storyMarketing campaigns should always start with a communication concept: a conceptual premise and framework that attracts attention and engages an audience in a way that penetrates each viewer’s mind, and captures the audience’s collective consciousness. It is the foundation of your brand story.

Developing an appropriate communication concept is the first step in creating your own distinctive marketing strategy: a strategy that employs the signature audio-visual-performance vocabulary needed to create an identifiable brand-associated campaign presentation. It is this presentation idiom that provides the communication tools needed to make your brand unique and memorable.

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