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By Jamie Simpson in Featured

webprogramOne of the latest tools for web design is the XSLT editor.

The best way to learn about XSLT is to visit the wonderful web site of the World Wide Web Consortium or the W3 School on the web. The definition of XSLT is eXtensible Stylesheet Language. This language is a stylesheet language for creating XML documents. The function of the XSLT is to transform XML into XHTML. There is a vast knowledge bank available there to learn how to use XSLT for web design.

Certification tests and tutorials are available for the earning and learning. If you would like to do some practical applications of this language, there is an on line XSLT editor at the W3 School web site.

The World Wide Web Consortium wanted to provide a language that would be an XML based stylesheet language. The evolution was first XSL and then XSLT, XPath and XSL-FO.

With CSS, which is Stylesheets for HTML. Predefined tags are used with HTML and are well understood. With an HTML defined tag each browser knows how it must be displayed.

CSS makes displaying special fonts or colors a simple task.

The story is different with XSL. XSL is Stylesheets for XML. The opposite is the case with tags for XSL. XSL uses any tag-names with no predefined tag which makes XSL not well understood. When the browser sees XSL tag it will not know how to display it because in HTML the meaning of a tag defines a table but in XSL a tag might mean an HTML table or it could mean something else.

There are more than 100 built in functions in XSLT. Here are some of the functions: – string values – numeric values – date and time comparison – node – QName manipulation – sequence manipulation – Boolean values

There are many more functions with XSLT but these are just some of the notable ones. On your XSLT editor you will notice that the default prefix for the function namespace is fn: When calling a function fn: prefix, such as fn:string(). Another thing to take note of: since fn: is the default prefix of the namespace, the function names, when called, do not need to be prefixed.

The purpose of XSLT is to transform XML documents into XHTML document. XSLT will also transform XML documents to other XML documents. Another language for navigating XML documents is XPath. The most significant part of XSL is when XSLT is recognized by a browser the way HTML and XHTML are, XSLT is used to transform an XML document into another XML document. Here is the big picture of what XSLT can do.

The actual mechanism is transformation by XSLT of an XML source tree into an XML result-tree. This is done with an XSLT editor with add/remove elements and attributes to or from the output file. Many other rearrangements can also be done such as sort elements, perform tests and make decisions about which elements to hide and display.

For more information on XSLT editor, visit – www.liquid-technologies.com/XSTL-Editor.aspx

By Duncan Wierman in Featured

contentThe Issues as We See Them

The real issue is that professional real estate agents/investors are being wrongly advised when it comes to creating and sharing content. Those things they are told might be relevant to their efforts – simply are not. Using information without taking a good look at the source of it will quite likely result in a real waste of your time and efforts. If you’re told that you should be tweeting, twittering, posting, and endlessly sharing, the advice you’re being given should be moderated by your own good sense.

While other self-proclaimed experts may be leading you down a path, or giving you misplaced hope, the reality is that you probably will not be markedly successful in getting a social media campaign off the ground in a week or two. The best advice that you will get from anyone is to use your common sense and do your own thinking. There simply aren’t any quick fixes or instant gratification arenas for those who want to get social media campaigns working for their benefit.

Most important of all, social media campaigns require relevant and excellent content to achieve. You can learn those strategies that it will take to share them, but the reality is that first that content must be created. The creation as well as the sharing of solid content will take time and learned skills to master.

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

A visit to Google this morning reveals a new Google Doodle – a tribute to John Lennon on what would have been his 70th birthday.

But today’s Doodle, (Google’s nickname for their holiday logos), includes a little extra surprise. When you click on the Doodle itself, a short audio clip from Lennon’s haunting ballad Imagine plays, accompanied by an animation sequence inspired by the music.gg-john-lennon-final

The Doodle itself incorporates the famous self-portrait hand drawn by Lennon from the ‘Bag One Portfolio’, an artistic chronicle of his wedding ceremony to Yoko Ono, their honeymoon and their plea for world peace.

After the animation clip plays, the Doodle morphs into a drawn style and then you are naturally redirected to search results for “John Lennon”.

A fitting tribute and much more inspiring than some of the more recent Doodles being churned out from Mountain View.

Nicely done Google.

By Elmar Sandyck in Featured

marketing3A few weeks ago a flyer was handed to a friend of mine at the mall by a lady selling real estate. My friend doesn’t have any intentions of purchasing a house, but she read the flyer anyway and checked out the company’s website. The houses looked nice and the prices were reasonable but being a marketer herself, she was turned off by the typographical errors she spotted on the flyer and wondered why the color schemes in the flyer and the site were different. In marketing, image is everything.

This is why having consistent marketing pieces is essential. You may have a clear mission, vision and values when you started your business. You know your objectives, and you’re thrilled to execute your marketing strategies.

You know you need to build your communications based on your value propositions, so you look at some of the most commonly used marketing materials and decide which ones you’ll create for your company such as brochures, newsletters, product sheets, and business cards. With a good copywriter and a creative graphic designer, it should be a piece of cake right?

So why do we still see some inconsistent marketing messages in some marketing pieces?

The importance of a consistent look and feel

Just how important is producing quality, consistent marketing materials? These pieces are the “face” of the company, so it’s essential that they not only look great and have flawless content – they also need to sends out consistent messages in order to be effective. We wouldn’t want to mislead prospects, customer and clients with inconsistent messages, slogans and even company colors, would we?

I’ve enumerated some tips for creating consistent marketing pieces. These may be very easy and basic for any marketer, but still, I believe it bears repeating. Eventually, marketing materials speak volumes about your brand, company and credibility. Might as well make it perfect.

Colors and Images.

Materials should be created from a consistent palate of colors and images. You don’t want to cause confusion. You would want to make certain that you are conveying a clear, consistent and compelling message, from your website, brochure and email newsletters to your print and billboard ads.

Perfect grammar, consistent terminology.

What would you think of a company if you notice bad grammar after visiting their site or reading their brochure? Care about the words you use. Consistent marketing collaterals require the use of consistent terms so that your customers are clear on what you are explaining. Content is king in your marketing pieces, and this shows a lot about the professionalism of your company.

Update, update, update.

After spending the time and money on your marketing collateral, perhaps, you don’t want to do it again.

Nevertheless, it’s important to keep them current. Make it a practice to check and review your pieces often to be certain that your messages are still consistent. Perhaps, you could even adjust the content and improve the design. No matter how busy business gets, never, never forget to keep your materials recent.

With consistent marketing pieces, you not only make an excellent impression – you also establish your brand and attract potential customers in!

Elmar Sandyck Believes In The Importance Of Consistent Marketing Pieces To Create A Profitable And Successful Business. For More Internet Strategies and Marketing Tips Visit www.InternetMastermindStrategy.com

By Joanne S. Black in Featured

businessIf you want to attract more clients, then you need to fire the pain-in-the-ass (PITA) clients who do nothing but suck up your time and energy. You know exactly who I’m talking about — the time-wasting, buy-nothing customers. By dumping them, you free up time to develop and care for the ones who really matter.

Why You Should Fire the PITA Customer

You can see the warning signs a mile away as they…

* Push you on price
* Threaten to take their business to your competitors
* Make unreasonable demands
* Masquerade as the decision-maker
* Don’t return phone calls; yet expect fast, complete and reliable delivery of your service.

These clients do nothing more than create added stress that you don’t need in your life, PITA customers are never happy. They drain your energy, test your patience, and waste your time. They demoralize your entire sales team. Yet companies accept this bad business continually, thinking bad business must be better than no business.

But is it?

Dump the Hidden Costs and Start Attracting More Clients

When organizations take on bad customers, they pay a hidden cost as they leave thousands to millions of dollars on the table. By focusing on PITA clients, many business owners are losing the opportunity to use those resources going after and servicing the phenomenal clients they want and need to make money! Collect too many PITA customers and watch your profits dwindle… not a compelling scenario.

Why accept business from a few customers who drive us crazy and drain our resources? Many salespeople say they sell to “anyone who fogs a mirror”–because of a looming quota, or because their company insists on certain deals. Many sales organizations create unrealistic expectations that they can turn a bad situation into a good one.

Are you dreaming?

Bad business is bad business.

Period.

Dump the Junk and Attract More Clients Who Want Your Help – And Is Willing to Pay For It Dearly

Targeting just “anyone” often means attracting more PITA customers. Never ask a PITA to refer you.

Why?

Because PITAs hang out with other PITAs. They belong to the same organizations, play golf together, and love telling stories about how they negotiated an unprecedented deal, or whipped a salesperson into shape.

Your best sales decision: Fire the PITA. Don’t take them in the first place, and if you have one, recognize you have a PITA situation and fight back.

Yes, fight back! Don’t take their abuse. You deliver a service that boosts their business. If they push you on price, be willing to walk away. That really turns the tables.

To demonstrate this point, picture two people standing with their arms out straight, pushing on and resisting each other’s hands. No one gets anyplace. It’s a stalemate.

Now re-create the same picture: One person stops resisting. What happens?

The other person moves toward the one who ceased resisting. The same thing happens when you’re willing to walk away. Sometimes you’ll walk, but many times the PITA comes to you.

Are You Now Ready to Fire PITA Clients and Attract Even More Clients

Great! But words don’t mean anything. Take action now and fire the PITA! We know them 90 percent of the time before we even begin to work with them. Say NO. It’s OK to walk away.

When you walk away, you have time to attract exactly the kind of clients you want. Follow my advice and you will watch your sales soar!

America’s leading authority on referral selling, professional speaker, and author of No More Cold Calling™, Joanne Black helps sales teams get more referrals and attract more business fast without increasing costs. Discover how to turn prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time. Visit www.nomorecoldcalling.com.

By Joel Sussman in Featured

ecommerceIf you own a bricks-and-mortar retail store, a distributorship, or a manufacturing facility, imagine the potential for increased sales if you offered your products to a global marketplace by simply setting up a website with your catalog on it. After installing an ecommerce shopping cart system and the ability to process payments online, some aspiring Internet moguls just sit back and wait for the orders to start flying in. The idea of suddenly having access to hundreds of millions of credit card wielding customers can certainly be intoxicating, but the reality of ecommerce success is that it’s not nearly that easy!

Maybe there’s some glamour associated with being a “renegade entrepreneur”, adopting a take-no-prisoners mentality and making up the rules as you go along. In some cases, being unconventional and aggressive can certainly help an online store stand out in the crowded Internet marketplace, but skipping steps and ignoring proven business principles is a guaranteed recipe for failure.

So if selling stuff on the Web represents a huge opportunity, but most people fail at it, then what does one have to do join the ranks of the successful “webpreneur”? While there are always risks inherent in starting any business, beginning your journey with an up-to-date “roadmap” (or virtual GPS) can help assure that you won’t get lost, miss an ‘exit’, or fail to reach your destination on your way to ecommerce success.

Imagine this scenario (and it happens all the time): An awesome-looking web site with marketable products and competitive prices goes online, but makes no sales or performs far below expectations. What happened? Well, there’s a veritable checklist of possibilities that could explain abysmal sales figures, but it often boils down to two things: a lack of attention to search engine optimization (SEO) and sales conversion factors.

The Essence of SEO and Online Sales Conversion Tactics

In a nutshell, search engine optimization means that steps have been taken to demonstrate to Google, Yahoo, and Bing that a web site is highly relevant for certain keywords, and that it deserves a top-10 ranking when searches are performed for those keywords. What a sizable portion of ecommerce website owners do not realize is that if their web site isn’t among the first dozen or so listings on the search engine results pages, then, for all intents and purposes, their web site is invisible to thousands of prospective customers.

To put things in perspective, millions of web pages are competing with each other for a top-10 Google ranking for most common keyword searches. So, to stand a chance of gaining any visibility in Google (the dominant search engine), an ecommerce site has to contain keyword combinations for which customers are actually searching. Not only that, but the phrases have to be strategically placed on the web page, and, ideally, the most important keyword phrase should be in the domain name and in links to your site from other web sites (that’s where it gets a bit tricky). Once all that has been accomplished, then your ecommerce web site is geared up to begin competing on a level playing field with other similar web sites trying to be found by customers on the Internet.

Another common ecommerce blunder is failing to make the most of sales conversion opportunities on a website, which can include everything from including trust-building factors and a hassle-free checkout process to offering easy site navigation features and plenty of clear “calls to action” — which refers to what you want the customer to do before leaving your web site (such as, call your toll-free number, leave their email address, or order a product). A good ‘rule of thumb’ in ecommerce, which also applies to do business off-line, is that “a confused customer is a lost customer”. So to maximize the sales conversion potential of your ecommerce online store, instill your visitors with a sense of trust, a clear path to placing an order or getting more information, and an incentive to take action now.

Joel Sussman is a web content writer for Mountain Media, a website development company in upstate New York that provides ecommerce design, website hosting, and other ecommerce solutions for online merchants. Visit their site for a free email course entitled “7-Days to Successful eCommerce”.

By Shannon Suetos in Featured

In the world of SEO there seems to be an article on everything from “how to get more backlinks” to “getting that #1 ranking on Google.” The more you read up on SEO tactics, the more you realize many people seem to give the same advice: write great content, submit it to social bookmarking sites, and be consistent.

Although all of these are great points, the one thing missing from many of these articles is that it isn’t that simple. You can write a great article, get it up and have it go viral-but you need to focus on the ART form that is SEO as well. Google is always changing the game for SEO experts, and you have to know how to go with the flow.

The fact is no one knows for sure what Google is looking for. We can guess, run case studies and be pretty sure on many things, but giving the same advice over and over again isn’t going to get any of us anywhere. So what else can we do?

Build Relationships

We hear this a lot in the social media world. But the more relationships you build with site owners, bloggers and reporters the more likely you can get your articles out to the right audience. Creating a funny infograph or article is great, and you could get a lot of link juice from it, but what about the next week, month, or year? The more relationships you build the more likely you can get your great content out to the right
audience.

Reach Out To Other Writers

Obviously your company needs to come up with great content-for both your site as well as others. But another way to get back links is to have other people write about your business. One of the reasons you create content is so people will link back to it-so start reaching out to writers and give them information they will want to write about.

Press releases are one great way to do that, but remember reporters get tons of press releases and phone calls from PR pros every day. This is where you need to get creative and figure out a reason why someone would want to write about your company.

Fresh Ideas

Having a great plan is, well, great, but just as Google is consistently changing, so should your plan. What works great one day could work against you on another day. This is why you need to consistently think of new ideas to get backlinks, viral content etc. This is much easier said than done however. If it was easy we would all have great PageRank, and not need to read up on SEO every day.

Mind mapping tools and weekly meeting to brainstorm are a great idea. One idea could morph into many and the next thing you know, you could have the next few months of content ideas in just a few meetings.

Trial and Error

SEO is also a game of trial and error. You won’t know what works until you try it. Don’t be afraid to take chances and see if your theory is right. Good or bad, it is a learning experience. The tools are out there, and writing great content and submitting to social bookmarking sties can work-but there are other ways to get exposure. It just takes some creativity and hard work.

Just like with other art forms, sometimes you have to create a mess before you can start creating masterpieces. This isn’t to say you need to bomb your SEO efforts completely and lose revenue, it just means you can stumble a little on new efforts while you’re hitting home runs with your “tried and true” efforts.

Shannon Suetos is an expert writer based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as phone systems & VoIP Service at Resource Nation.

By John Carroll in Featured

googlelogoEveryone wants to be “on the top page of Google”. Most businesses think that if they reach the top of these powerful search engines, they will get new customers and gain an enormous amount of exposure. The truth is the internet can be the most powerful marketing outlet your business has ever known IF you are using the right keywords.

So What Are Keywords?

When a person goes to Google and performs a search, the first thing they do is type what they are looking for and hit the “Search” button. The words typed in the search box is the keyword phrase used for that particular search.

For example, if I am looking for Nike Shoes, I would go to Google.com and type “Nike Shoes Asheville, NC” (without the quotes of course). The words “Nike Shoes Asheville NC” is my keyword phrase.

I could be the only person that types “Nike Shoes Asheville, NC” which would make that keyword phrase practically useless. However, if that particular keyword phrase is typed by 1,100 people per month, then it would be a viable keyword phrase to target for a shoe business.

By Frank Breinling in Featured

dotcomDomains that have been registered and never dropped are called “Aged Domains”.

These domains normally sell for more than a new one because they have been around for a while. They’re usually out of the Google Sandbox and for those who are looking for aged domains with a history, it can help them make a living online or raise credibility in their niche markets simply because if the domain has been around for years, it appears that they have as well.

Aged domains can also be found on forums like DNForum.com and simply by typing in the keywords “Aged Domains” into the search bar you can easily locate domain auctions that include these older domain names.

I have purchased dozens of domain names for $40 or less that were anywhere from 5 – 10 years old. Just based on the age alone I was able to flip these domain names for over 5x what I paid.

For instance, one domain name I purchased was never used, meaning it had never featured a website on it. It just sat parked in the users account for over six years.

I purchased the domain for only $30.00 and because of its age, I was able to flip it for $379.00.

By Chris Makell in Featured

businessSmall business owners are smart, savvy and creative. This is, oftentimes, what causes more confusion with prospects. Let’s use an example to make it clearer.

Imagine you’re at a networking event and you’re talking to someone who could be an ideal client. You’re really focused in on them. You’re listening carefully to their every word. You begin to realize they’re not talking about their business, but about their life. You may think to yourself, “Yeah, yeah, we’re all really challenged economically right now in our personal lives, but how’s your business doing?”

And before you know it, you’ve let that slip out and their eyes kind of glaze over. You wonder, what just happened here? This, after all, is a business event, so why are you talking about your personal life.

Well in case you missed it, for a lot of small business owners, their business is their life. That’s how they support themselves financially and spiritually! And this points to the first reason you can confuse a prospect!

#1 You don’t understand their problem

If you’re not “hearing” the problem and the pain it’s causing them, you may address the symptoms and not the underlying cause. Here’s an example. Let’s say you are an expert in providing health and nutritional products. A prospect complains they’re not feeling well and is in need more energy because they’re balancing work, family, etc. You “hear” the possibility for “supplements” could be helpful to boost their energy. What you may miss is their lifestyle may require an “overhaul” meaning diet, exercise, valuing who they are, etc. So the “supplements” will only give them the energy to stay out of balance!

#2 You don’t understand your comprehensive solution

So you focus on the supplements, however your “comprehensive” solution might include an overall plan for this person. An approach that includes “wellness” of which supplementation is only a small part (even though it’s you’re core business). But you have to know your full repertoire, i.e. all of your available solutions in order to be effective in solving the prospect’s problem. And if you don’t offer it directly, who could you partner with to address the prospect’s problem?

#3 You can’t help the prospect bridge the gap

Continuing with this example. If you were focused on listening for the “business challenge” and not asking the questions that help you see the connection between their lack of business clients and the lack of life balance, you will overlook how the two are, in fact, affecting each other. Your role is to help the prospect clearly see the connection; you have to help them bridge the gap. Otherwise, your prospect will not see how your solution will help both in their personal and business life and the opportunity is lost! And they walk away confused as to what you do or
offer.

The moral of the story is? Truly listen to all aspects of your prospects “being” because it will serve as a rich source of information. It will also help you determine if your solution will solve their problem. And after all, isn’t that the business we’re in?

And remember, a confused mind never buys.

Chris Makell helps coaches, consultants, and other solopreneurs create profitable businesses by showing them what to do and how to do it, using proven marketing strategies. To learn how to make more money doing what you love, visit www.RadianceMarketing.com to claim your free special report, “7 Surefire Ways to Get the Most out of Your Time and Marketing Dollar.”

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