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The Psychology Behind a Successful Business Owner

By Christian Fea in Featured

Business owners have to do much more than offer a quality product or service today. With a market that continues to increase in competition, thanks to the global ramifications of the Internet, successful businesspeople will also be characterized by certain qualities that get them noticed in their industry.

If you thought psychology classes were strictly for the health care professionals, think again. There’s plenty of psychology that goes into the effective running of a business, particularly when joint venture marketing comes into play.

Relationship Building

Successful business owners must know how to form relationships both with potential customers and prospective JV marketing partners. Relationships with joint venture business partners must be professional, but they must also inspire trust and creativity between the two of you. When a JV marketing partnership is healthy and thriving, both businesses benefit.

Make sure your communication with your partner is used to build up rather than tear down the other individual. Offer positive feedback and show enthusiasm for your joint business venture. When you make others feel good about their contributions and their relationship with you, they are more likely to stick around for the long haul.

Networking

Networking is an important part of building a successful business, whether you are interacting with other business owners or potential customers. Networking events are an excellent place to meet other like-minded individuals who might be interested in building a JV partnership with you.

However, these occasions may cause shy individuals to shiver with anxiety and may even result in you missing out on valuable business opportunities because your fears prohibit you from attending. If social networking makes you nervous, take a class on interpersonal communication that can provide you with the skills you need to handle these events with confidence.

Team Playing

An effective business is a team of individuals, all working together toward a common goal. If you want your business to be successful, you will need to learn to play nicely with others. This includes other business owners in your field that might be lucrative JV partners, as well as those who work directly in your business with you. Cooperation, contribution and positive encouragement are all traits that make individuals effective team builders.

If you are lacking in any of these traits, team-building classes will show you how to work well with others. Learning specific techniques like active listening and group brainstorming can also show you how to make the most of the creativity and enthusiasm within your staff to make your business run more smoothly.

Psychology plays an important role in a successful business, whether you are forming JV partnerships with other business owners, working with your staff, or interacting with your customers.

If you feel your interpersonal skills are lacking, now is the time to get educated on the finer points of networking and team building. Professional classes are available in psychology, communication and interpersonal skills through community colleges and professional training forums. The money you invest in building your professional skills will go a long way in helping you run your business more effectively.

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Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability. Join his Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report at www.christianfea.com/joint-venture-wealth-report.

What Does It Mean to Be Poked on Facebook?

By Terri Brooks in Featured

I was doing some research yesterday and stumbled across this question that people were asking. What does it mean to be poked on Facebook? I laughed out loud…a long time! There were more than 1,000 people asking this question!

Well, it really is no mystery as to what “poking” on Facebook means. It just means you poke them. Just like if you walked up to someone at the grocery store and took your finger and poked them. It’s a way of saying hello to your friends on Facebook.

Once you poke someone, they have the option of poking you back or ignoring your poke. When I was growing up the guys would “swap licks” which meant they would take turns hitting each other in the arm with their fist until someone finally said “uncle!” Poking can work in a similar fashion. You poke someone, they poke you back, you poke them again, they poke you back….gets a little monotonous doesn’t it.

You can only poke a confirmed friend, so you can’t go around poking just anyone. And can only poke you if your account is confirmed. Someone poked me several weeks ago, but I didn’t respond, so it’s still on my home page that I have been poked. I can choose to ignore it, which I have obviously done, or I can remove it, which I will probably do.

And just to clarify conformed means that you have to confirm the email address that you set your Facebook account up with and that will enable you to send messages, write on your friends’ Walls, post in discussions, poke, tag your friends, comment, join groups, and fan pages, and basically use your account to it’s fullest.

I guess it could be fun to poke someone, but I really don’t know why. If I want to say Hi, I’ll just go to their Wall or send them a private message and say Hi! But for the thousands of people who have been anxious to get the real story on poking…you have it now.:) And please don’t poke me, I have tender arms!

Learn more social media tips and find useful resources on Terri’s Facebook Fan Page at facebook.com/socialmediatraining.

Spamming Techniques That You Should Avoid

By SEO Webmaster in Featured

There are many ways to spam search engines and trick search engine spider to increase traffic to websites. Some of these popular methods are better known as ‘search engine spamming.’ Let’s know more about these methods in order to gain clarity:

Keyword Stuffing:
It is commonly known as the repeated use of word or phrase in order to make a page look more relevant. There is a specific way of including keywords in a webpage. Determine your exact keywords and use them in different ways to include in the page.

Invisible Text:
In this method, spammers usually insert text that is a combination of repetitive use of keywords on a webpage. The main aspect of this kind of process is that it is discolored and make to look similar as the background color so as to making invisible for common users.

Tiny Text:
Many times, spammers use small font size to place their content. By doing so again and again, search engines may penalize the website.

Page Spoofing / Meta Refresh / Redirection:
This is a process that automatically redirects users to a newly developed webpage. Usually, spammers create a separate page for particular keywords. So, when users click on the link, it will lead users to a different page with very content with no relation with the mentioned keywords. Therefore, most search engines simply decline such pages.

Meta Tag Stuffing:
Usually, adding keywords to a webpage without putting in excess keywords is an accepted form of search engine popularizing. However, many people place high traffic keywords which are directly not related with a webpage in any way.

Common spam indexing techniques are content spam and link spam. Content spam may include: keyword stuffing, hidden or invisible, meta tag stuffing, gateway or doorway pages, scraper sites, article spinning. Link spam includes: hidden links, link building using automated software, page hijacking, cookie stuffing, Sybil attacks and link farms.

Other spam indexing techniques are cloaking, URL redirection.

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Road2SEO is a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization Book for the SEO professionals. Road2SEO, one of the effective SEO Book helps you learn search engine optimization to create a powerful pipeline that drives a steady flow of traffic to your site. To learn SEO online use the powerful Internet Marketing tool Road2SEO.

16 Ecommerce SEO Tips to Keep You Ahead

By Debbie Everson in Featured

A typical Ecommerce website contains a few hundred pages. An Ecommerce giant like Amazon contains thousands of products and millions of web pages. Optimizing a website like Amazon is not tough; it just requires a strong SEO strategy.

Optimizing an Ecommerce site is slightly different from optimizing a static website. You need to plan and construct your optimization strategy well in advance. This will help save you a lot of time and effort in the future.

16 Ecommerce SEO Tips to Keep Your Website Ahead in Rankings and Traffic

1. Maintain a Uniform and Clean Website Structure: The home page of your website should reflect the product categories; while all the inner pages should follow a common webpage structure.

2. Use a Unique Title Tag: Every product page should have a unique title. An Ecommerce site can contain any number of web pages. You can ask the programmer to code the title from the page content and product name. This makes your SEO more dynamic.

3. Select an Appropriate Keyword: The keywords must be unique for every webpage. They must reflect the important phrases within the webpage content. For an Ecommerce site, you can ask the programmer to select keywords from the content and product name.

Child Prostitution: Craigslist has nothing to do with it.

By Pace Lattin in Featured

Let me start with this: I’ve dedicated a portion of my life to finding criminals on the internet, and have worked with both local and federal law enforcement to help catch child predators. Child Prostitution and Sex Slavery is a plague on the human race that needs to be eradicated completely. Recently 16 State Attorney Generals made what seemed to be a positive step in asking Craigslist to better police their adult-services section to prevent child prostitution. Their desire was that the adult-services section be completely shut down because they accused the site of being complicit in allowing advertising for these services to be allowed an in theory assisting in the exploitation of children. This claim against Craigslist, is ridiculous and worse, changes the focus from the real issues surrounding this issue and attempts to blame a technology for the actions of pedophiles.

It’s important in this debate to clear the air: we are not talking about prostitution in general, with its own set of complaints, its own moral and political issues. The 16 Attorney Generals who took on Craigslist specifically brought up the most horrific of crimes, the forced prostitution and rape of children. They made general claims that Craigslist.com was a cesspool of child prostitution, that there were thousands of advertisements available on Craigslist.com every day that made children available sexually to predators for money. While I applaud the Attorney Generals for finally paying attention to the issue of Child Prostitution in this country, they are taking the easy way out, focusing on a company that has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue to make headlines.

The problem with the claims of the 17 Attorney Generals is that they are only grounded in press spin. While Craigslist does have advertising for prostitution, so does hundreds of publications, online websites, and magazines in this country – and the Yellow Pages. Their basis is that one can go online and see a virtual cornucopia of child-sex advertising. While I know that there have been some cases on child prostitution on Craigslist.com, an overwhelming amount of the sex-based advertising is that of consensual services between adults. Most of the claims of law enforcement and the media are based on a few real cases, but mainly on the claims that certain “keywords” signified child prostitution. When the press releases and media reports say that they found “thousands of ads on Craigslist.com promoting child prostitution” they are basing this on a very incorrect assumption.

This assumption is simple: that every advertisement that says “young”, “barely legal”, “fresh” and a dozen other keywords, are advertising child prostitution. Law Enforcement looks for these keywords and then mark that advertisement as a suspect “child prostitution” advertisement. For investigative purposes this is very, very important – but it does not make a real situation of child-prostitution. Remember, companies like Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and many porn magazines promote “barely legal” in their magazines, videos, and websites all the time. There is 4.5M results on Google for “barely legal” for porn sites, should we assume that Google is promoting child prostitution? If we are to really want to blame anyone for the seemingly great appetite of some men in the United States for “barely legal” women, we should be blaming the porn companies which promote this type of porn with photos of women in pigtails and school skirts.

Dr. Lois Lee, one of the heading experts in forced prostitution of Children, seems to agree with me. She told me that “Blaming Craig’s List for child prostitution is like blaming Alexander Bell for providing the telephone.” Instead of making real steps in the fight against sex-slavery, the Attorney Generals have gone after the technology, almost like there are Neo-Luddites who look at a computer and complain that it’s evil, causing people itself to get on the internet and search for evil things. The problem in this Country with child prostitution has nothing to do with Craigslist anymore than drug dealing has to do with prepaid cell phones. Most child prostitution doesn’t even occur on the internet, but on the streets, with organized gangs, with poor populations who can’t protect themselves. The real issues are much deeper and have to do with a broken child protection system that allows runaways to fall through the cracks, with parents not monitoring their children’s whereabouts, with the issues of uneven prosecution against the victims instead of the johns. By blaming Craigslist we remove the needed focus on the real issue of catching these criminals, the reasons child-prostitution occurs, and what is really wrong with our society as a whole. On top of that, if there are cases of child prostitution on Craigslist, we are removing one of the best tools in catching these criminals. Craigslist.com is involved with preventing these ads, forwarding them to law enforcement for investigation – without this, many of these guys will go back to peddling on the street again, making it much harder for them to be caught.

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In perhaps the fastest growing industry ever, one person has made a name for himself as a leader and innovator. Pace Lattin, the publisher of the top newsletters in new media and online advertising, is one of the inventors of many of the technologies and methods that have become standards in the industry. He has been called many things, including a rabble-rouser, a guru, an innovator and a watchdog — but one thing stays the same: he is one of the most interesting leaders and commentators in the online advertising industry. Marketing Sherpa, a leading marketing research publication called him the most influential journalist in online media for a reason. IndustryPace.com

The Evolving Web: What it Means for the Website Owner

By Chris Kaminski in Featured

As we work with clients who need web design and search engine optimization (SEO) services, we observe that many are unclear about what their existing or proposed websites can do for them. We share the highlights of what works and we aim to educate interested clients about changing web standards, good design, content, and SEO. While web has been changing and evolving since it began, now the changes come more quickly. Shifting search engine behavior can come as a shock when it brings a website’s position down in search engine results pages (SERPS) in a matter of days or weeks. Unfortunately, this is common. Sites with old and tired content are being hit hard.

In view of all this, we’d like for clients and readers to have the most benefit possible from the evolving web, with its real time searching, social media, and other developments. Such changes transform our websites over time, just as they change the world of business and
information. There’s a lot that goes into getting good results on the web, and the fact that it’s always changing creates a pretty complex situation for site owners.

Websites should change over time though many site owners would rather they did not. The alternative is not being easily found by search engines or users. Faced with this choice, most site owners find out and implement what it takes to keep up. With the search engine algorithm changes made recently, many know they must either fix the old site, if it’s fixable, and expand from there — or create a new
search engine friendly website that has potential.

From what we see, people are more likely to succeed on today’s web if they realize these “web facts” and act on them before the facts become painfully obvious:

-One must have a plan that works. How will people find the website, how will they be encouraged to browse, shop, download helpful tools, articles, or videos that you may offer? (This is what the conversion rate reflects.) How search engine friendly is the code and the over all
structure? How quickly do the pages load? Is there a plan for growth that allows for future changes, blogs, shopping carts and so forth? Is the site owner limited by an obsolete hosting platform?

-The conversion rate, mentioned above, is key. How does the site owner wish to benefit when more visitors appear? How can the casual visitor be converted into an involved and loyal user who chats about the site with friends and colleagues?

- No website is ever DONE, or complete. Any successful site needs updating regularly. More and more, sites need to look and feel current. Site users and search engines alike want to find a current site. One needs a plan for new and changing high quality content. One’s own site and the web in general is a moving target we need to stay after. New learning is essential. Putting the results of new learning into action is essential. A site needs a life of it’s own and should be built and developed for a lot of purposeful activity all around the web. We have a more dynamic Internet than we did even a few years ago, and that is a massive understatement! How does the website owner plan get the
website out into the world?

Thanks for reading today. We at Lone Bird Studio in Asheville, NC wish all current and future website owners pleasant learning and success with their web design and search engine optimization activities.

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Chris has been owner and head designer since he started LBS back 1979. His marketing experience crosses all media and Chris is settled firmly into web design and marketing. With his first website going up in 1997 Chris has himself as one of the leading Web Design Studios in Western North Carolina. Based in Asheville Lone Bird Studio has a proven record of results and satisfied clients. Check him out at
www.lonebird.com.

A Review of the PopUp Domination WordPress Plugin

By John H Hoff in Featured

The PopUp Domination WordPress Plugin is the newest, and first, plugin released by Michael Dunlop, a young online entrepreneur who blogs about making money online and generating your own wealth.

What the plugin is for

It’s for WordPress bloggers who have an email newsletter and wants to increase their subscription rate.

What it does

Once the plugin is installed and activated, it’ll pop up a subscription box whenever a person visits your site, however, you can configure how often it’s shown to the same person. Some people like to pop up the box every time someone visits your site, returning or not.

Personally I don’t like to do that, mainly because as a blogger, I have many returning visitors who like to comment on my blog and they don’t need to keep getting hit with my pop up. My preferred settings are to show the box to everyone at first and then show it to them again after 7 days.

I also prefer to wait to show the popup until after they’ve been on my site for at least 20 seconds. I do this because a really successful niche marketer told me once that’s what they’ve found works best for them. The reasoning behind it was that the people who stay longer than 5 seconds are probably interested in what you have to offer.

So why does the popup domination plugin work so well?

I’ve definitely seen an increase in subscriber rate to my newsletter since using this plugin. The plugin seems to work so well because the popup templates which you are supplied with are high quality and are visually pleasing to your visitor.

PopUp Domination Options

As of the writing of this article, the plugin has the following settings available:

* 4 different pop up templates to choose from
* Multiple options for the template and button colors
* Easy embedding of many of the popular mailing list services (MailChimp, AWeber, etc.)
* Customization of text shown on the popup
* Allows you to add quick bullet points
* Schedule how often it appears to visitors
* Advanced settings where pros can edit the template and CSS files

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John Hoff has been using and blogging with WordPress since 2007. Check out how he’s customized the PopUp Domination WordPress Plugin on his blog and how he’s used it to increase the rate at which people subscribe to his newsletter.

The Beauty of Reviews – Good and Bad

By Elyse Tager in Featured

I was taught, way back when I was in sales, to ask for a report card from clients ESPECIALLY when you think it’s going to be a bad one. This gives you a chance to address the issues with the client, let them know you are listening and concerned, and turn those issues around. Plus you get extra points for being proactive.

Many companies that are reluctant to dive into social media tell me that they are afraid of their brand being “out there” for public criticism — whether it is deserved or not. Reputation management is one of the key objectives for which SMM (social media marketing) can be used, and that same “report card” lesson applies.

No one can debate the benefits that a good review or customer comment can provide to any business. But a bad review, or blog/Twitter comment, can be just as useful if it is addressed correctly and in a timely manner. Below are some tips on how to make lemonade out of that potential lemon of a review.

Assess the damage

-Take some time to figure out what kind of comment it is, how it’s intended and where it’s coming from.

-Is it constructive criticism? If the customer truly caught a problem and is bringing it to your attention, that’s a very good thing.

-Is it seemingly well intentioned? The tone, message, or verbiage may be cutting but is the intention good — to help you as a business owner recognize a problem and address it.

-Is it venting after a frustrating experience? The venting might be volatile and angry, but if it’s ultimately helping you recognize a problem, it’s still a good thing.

-Does it sound just hurtful? You know pure anger when you hear it. You may then decide whether or not to respond.

Decide how you are going to respond, but whatever it is, respond quickly.

-Be sure to respond directly and personally (in tone) and don’t hide behind corporate speak.

-Stay proactive, positive and productive.

-Don’t ever be defensive, that never helps anything.

-If criticism identifies a real problem, cop to it, offer information on solutions that are already in progress, or at least offer some info on your intention to address the issues.

-If reviewer discussion is too hot and you do want to respond and find that it is appropriate to respond, then take it off line. Provide an 800 number or email address or just your business phone number and invite the commenter to call to figure it all out.

When NOT to react

-If you are too angry – chill for a day or so. Reacting in the heat of battle will never result in anything positive

-If the reviewer is angry at the world, not necessarily your business

-If the review is spamming or trolling, just looking for linking or trackbacks – just ignore it. This is one of the artful aspects of good PR, knowing when NOT to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Even a bad review can be good. Remember that mantra of social media connect/create/engage. The secret sauce is transparency. A bad review addressed is a very good thing. Don’t be afraid to have your brand out there, it’s all good.

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Elyse Tager is a social media strategist and founder of Elymedia, a marketing and media company with a foot in both worlds – online and offline. Elyse develops effective marketing strategies to help the small business grow significantly. Want to learn more about growing your business with Social Media? Sign up for Elyse’s free introductory teleseminar available at =>
www.elymedia.com/freeclass.html.

4 Ways to Use Social Media in Promotions

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

Social media marketing has earned its place as one of the fastest-growing, most competitive marketing fields in the history of advertising. People are gathering online in record numbers, finding and socializing in groups that cater to their interests; often, these interests neatly intersect with marketing and branding opportunities. The best social media tools combine simplicity with an extensive reach, allowing messages to target thousands of people in seconds, thus serving as an outstanding tool of brand promotion.

Briefly, here are a few of the more interesting and simple ways you can use social media to arrange a short-term promotion for your brand.

#1 – Flash Mob

A flash mob is an impromptu gathering of people arranged by SMS. Originally popular on message boards, the advent of texting and SMS powerhouses like Twitter has made flash mobs even easier to arrange. In the simplest terms, the originator of the mob sends a message to his audience, arranging a time, place and theme for a quick meeting and/or performance. Famous mobs have included zombie walks, unannounced pillow fights at major business centers, and other assorted fun events.

“What We Have Here, Is A Failure To Communicate”

By Jerry Bader in Featured

Well Google has done it again, speeding up searches with Google Instant by two seconds by anticipating what they think you want. Excuse me, but have you ever had a conversation with someone who never let’s you finish your sentence before they start to answer with something that has nothing to do with what you were about to say – irritating isn’t it? So here we have another technological solution to a problem that really doesn’t exist. Is the two seconds or so that you save going to improve your life or your business, or are you going to waste an hour visiting websites that you never wanted to go to, and that don’t have what you think you want. Most people don’t even know what they really want and only discover it through the serendipity that search engines traditionally supply. Take that away and you might as well look things up in the phonebook. The people at Google may be smart but they ain’t no Amazing Kreskin.
There is no doubt technology has improved the potential for us to communicate more efficiently but is it’s misuse hurting effectiveness? Recently I was asked to write an article on Unified Communication, the name given to the effort to unify and integrate all the various digital communication devices available in an effort to make communication more efficient. Any discussion of communication and efficiency must not ignore effectiveness – what good is whiz-bang technology when the people using it have lost the ability to present a coherent thought, or have lost the curiosity to learn about things they have never heard of. You can check out the article yourself at http://www.focus.com/briefs/marketing/unified-communication-method-message/.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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