Member You - Internet and Businesses Online

Before You Head Off, Make Sure You Know Where You Are Going - The Importance of Clear Objectives
The title of this article sounds like simple advice, but so often we undertake activities and projects without really understanding how they are going to help us to achieve our aims. I have outlined below some of the causes of this cavalier (and costly) approach to business improvement along with how we might approach things differently.The latest thing!In business we are often worse devotees of fashion than any teenager. We undertake initiatives, programmes and structural changes regularly to follow the latest trends in management thinking. Think of business process re-engineering, lean manufacturing, web services, outsourcing, “off-shoring” - the list is endless. Now each of these have their place and can have a dramatic, and often very positive, effect on an organisation, but how often are they selected simply because they are what everyone else is doing or what the consultants are pushing this year?All of the activities listed above are tools to achieve certain aims and every organisation’s aims are unique.Don’t follow everyone else down the A1 if you are trying to get to Aberdeen!Busy foolsAlthough in some organisations bureaucracy can lead to action never being taken on anything, in many the opposite is true. Particularly in the SME sector, action is prized much higher than planning. This can help in adapting quickly to change but often has the effect of creating “busy fools”. Doing something

Keyword Research That Works
On the internet, keywords are terms or words that relate to your particular topic. Keyword research will involve various aspects, such as finding sales oriented keywords or driving maximum qualified users to increase your online sales.Keyword research is the first step towards a successful search engine optimization campaign. You have to be very careful when selecting keywords, as it can be very tricky to select targeted keywords for a website.The selection of keywords should always be based on various aspects such as product names, services, brands, or general terms. Often times, people forget about targeting geographical terms when they have global presence.When doing keyword research, it's highly recommended to do a very thorough market research analysis to find the best keywords used by search engines to find products and services online - and find out what keywords are targeted by competitors who are doing well in marketing on the internet. Run a Goggle search for your product. Take a look at the top listings for your category. Place your cursor on the web page and do a right click. From the menu that pops up, click on “Source Code”. When the code opens in notepad, scroll down to “Meta Tags”. Review the Meta tags to see what keywords this web site owner is targeting and use some or all of these keywords for your project.The next step in finding the best keywords is to make a list of the products, topics, and services t

Reciprocal linking scams have increased immensely during the past year. Initially we thought that this problem only related to gambling and casino related websites but an audit of our commercial link partners suggests that it is a serious problem within the broader online community.

Over the past eighteen months, we noticed that our page rank was slowly declining despite the fact that we were continually adding new link partners to our link directory. We had slipped from a five down to a two before we finally identified the exact cause of the problem.

Out of the first 100 links on our anchor site, only seven were still being reciprocated.

We recrawled the sites where no link was found with a second spider and got exactly the same result. Then we started manually checking the sites where no link back was found and started discovering patterns of deliberate link fraud.

The scams in order of popularity amongst the scammers – 1. The link on the home page to the link directory remained but clicking on it or specific directory links produced a template style page with a few casino banners or simply a page with no directory content – This scam was most popular with the owners of multiple domains with the .co.za and .co.uk suffixes

2. The link on the home page to the link directory remained but clicking on gambling or casino related links returned a list of links to sites owned solely by the same person or company. The worst offenders in this group preferred domain extensions of .biz, .us and .md

3. The link directory index page remained but the link directory had been severely pruned and most remaining links were to the site owners other sites or to casinos. This one is common across all suffixes.

4. Links not clickable – links to the directory and various pages within the directory remained intact. At the time of their link exchange campaign, their links were clickable but at some stage after that the code that makes the link clickable was removed and the site name was placed in bold text so at a glance it appeared to be a legitimate clickable link. This scam is most favored by sites that place a miniature screen shot of the index page of your site beside your back link.

5. A variation of the previous scam. When you run your mouse pointer over the page, the ‘links’ change color but no URL displays in the search bar at the bottom of your browser window. Right click has been disabled on the page so that most people looking at the page cannot see the code. If you use Dreamweaver MX or later, highlight the part of the page you want to look at and then using Control C copy it to the clip board and then use Control V to paste it into the design side of a basic Dreamweaver page. When you click on code you can see what they were attempting to stop you seeing. It may work in the later versions of similar authoring programs. Worst offenders are a poker room and a media company operating out of India.

6. One way link exchanges – usually you are contacted by a search engine optimization company or the SEO person for a large group of websites offering you multiple one way link exchanges with half of their sites if you will link back to the other half of their sites. After a few weeks or months the links to your sites are deleted. The worst offender in this group is a prominent search engine optimization company located in India.

7. Your link starts out on a page with fair page rank usually attached to a domain with high page rank. But after a few weeks is moved to a boon docks page with no page rank that will never be indexed. – common amongst higher PR sites.

8. The link directory is on another domain with no page rank. When you click on the link to the directory on the home page, always watch the bar in the bottom of your browser window and see that the link you clicked is in fact on the domain with which you are exchanging links – watch especially for domain names that are very similar e.g. one letter different in the spelling or a .net instead of a .com and link pages that are hosted on the domain of a link management company. Also watch for redirects. If suspicious go back and click the link again. Often the redirected URL flashes up for only an instant or it just takes an inordinate time for the page to load compared to other pages on the site. If in doubt search for a site map - very popular with some owners of multiple bingo sites.

9. Sub domains of domains with no page rank. Sub domains are supposed to always rank lower than the parent domain. (Of late I have found a few sub domains with up to PR3 attached to a domain with no page rank) If the parent domain has a page rank of zero then link pages attached to that sub domain will almost always be zero so why trade a good link for a dud link?

10. We have never fallen for any in this group but many novice webmasters do so regularly. Beware of high PR sites offering you a link exchange on one of their inconsequential internal pages with the same PR as your index page in return for you placing a graphic link to their index page on your index page. This is a deliberate attempt to steal your hard earned traffic. A variation of this one is

8 Things I Have Learned As An Internet Marketer
I started as an internet marketer, like I am sure a few of you have with various mlm programs. After little success with these types of programs I finally decided it was time I make my own website and get serious about marketing on the internet. Although I have not been doing this as long as some, there have been a few things that I have learned along the way that have helped me achieve much more success than my previous ventures in mlm. I would like to share with you 8 things I have learned since becoming an internet marketer.1. Choosing The Right ProgramChoosing the right program to affiliate with is still a relevant way of making money on the internet. I learned not believe all the hype surrounding every affiliate program on the net. Instead I look for affiliate programs that pay at least 30% commissions and are run by reputable internet marketers.2. Choosing The Right ToolsI learned quickly that you need much more than just a website to become successful. Choosing the right tools to optimize your internet business is crucial if you hope to succeed. Tools like auto responders, professional emailboxes, and software that help with linking and submitting your site to search engines is very important information to have. However, some of these tools can be expensive, but the return on investment is priceless.3. Targeted TrafficGetting the right people to your website is something all internet marketers are const

ecific directory links produced a template style page with a few casino banners or simply a page with no directory content – This scam was most popular with the owners of multiple domains with the .co.za and .co.uk suffixes

2. The link on the home page to the link directory remained but clicking on gambling or casino related links returned a list of links to sites owned solely by the same person or company. The worst offenders in this group preferred domain extensions of .biz, .us and .md

3. The link directory index page remained but the link directory had been severely pruned and most remaining links were to the site owners other sites or to casinos. This one is common across all suffixes.

4. Links not clickable – links to the directory and various pages within the directory remained intact. At the time of their link exchange campaign, their links were clickable but at some stage after that the code that makes the link clickable was removed and the site name was placed in bold text so at a glance it appeared to be a legitimate clickable link. This scam is most favored by sites that place a miniature screen shot of the index page of your site beside your back link.

5. A variation of the previous scam. When you run your mouse pointer over the page, the ‘links’ change color but no URL displays in the search bar at the bottom of your browser window. Right click has been disabled on the page so that most people looking at the page cannot see the code. If you use Dreamweaver MX or later, highlight the part of the page you want to look at and then using Control C copy it to the clip board and then use Control V to paste it into the design side of a basic Dreamweaver page. When you click on code you can see what they were attempting to stop you seeing. It may work in the later versions of similar authoring programs. Worst offenders are a poker room and a media company operating out of India.

6. One way link exchanges – usually you are contacted by a search engine optimization company or the SEO person for a large group of websites offering you multiple one way link exchanges with half of their sites if you will link back to the other half of their sites. After a few weeks or months the links to your sites are deleted. The worst offender in this group is a prominent search engine optimization company located in India.

7. Your link starts out on a page with fair page rank usually attached to a domain with high page rank. But after a few weeks is moved to a boon docks page with no page rank that will never be indexed. – common amongst higher PR sites.

8. The link directory is on another domain with no page rank. When you click on the link to the directory on the home page, always watch the bar in the bottom of your browser window and see that the link you clicked is in fact on the domain with which you are exchanging links – watch especially for domain names that are very similar e.g. one letter different in the spelling or a .net instead of a .com and link pages that are hosted on the domain of a link management company. Also watch for redirects. If suspicious go back and click the link again. Often the redirected URL flashes up for only an instant or it just takes an inordinate time for the page to load compared to other pages on the site. If in doubt search for a site map - very popular with some owners of multiple bingo sites.

9. Sub domains of domains with no page rank. Sub domains are supposed to always rank lower than the parent domain. (Of late I have found a few sub domains with up to PR3 attached to a domain with no page rank) If the parent domain has a page rank of zero then link pages attached to that sub domain will almost always be zero so why trade a good link for a dud link?

10. We have never fallen for any in this group but many novice webmasters do so regularly. Beware of high PR sites offering you a link exchange on one of their inconsequential internal pages with the same PR as your index page in return for you placing a graphic link to their index page on your index page. This is a deliberate attempt to steal your hard earned traffic. A variation of this one is

Tips on Searching for Employment
In order to live, we need money. In order to have money, we need jobs. Money makes the world go round. That’s true. But for those who have a hard time looking for employment, here are some tips on how to do so.1. If you have just been fired from your latest job and received your severance package, don’t go on vacation. Employers look at the time you had your previous job to the one that you are doing now. It shows that you are wise and productive when it comes to managing your time.2. Go to job fairs. Chances are there are some in your area and on regular basis. This is the best way for you to personally meet potential employers. Job fairs are held by employers in order to get and hire the candidates that are most qualified for the available positions.3. Seize the day. The very minute you see something that gets your interest, send your cover letter and resume as soon as possible. Companies do not have to wait in granting applicants interviews. You wouldn’t want to be left behind now, would you?4. Focus on the needs of the organization and not your own. Job seekers fail in getting the job because they concentrate too much on the title, the responsibilities and compensation that come with it, the growth opportunity, status, location and so on. On the other hand, those who succeed are those who provide the organization what it needs.5. You can get your dream job by working your way to get to the top. But first, you must

a legitimate clickable link. This scam is most favored by sites that place a miniature screen shot of the index page of your site beside your back link.

5. A variation of the previous scam. When you run your mouse pointer over the page, the ‘links’ change color but no URL displays in the search bar at the bottom of your browser window. Right click has been disabled on the page so that most people looking at the page cannot see the code. If you use Dreamweaver MX or later, highlight the part of the page you want to look at and then using Control C copy it to the clip board and then use Control V to paste it into the design side of a basic Dreamweaver page. When you click on code you can see what they were attempting to stop you seeing. It may work in the later versions of similar authoring programs. Worst offenders are a poker room and a media company operating out of India.

6. One way link exchanges – usually you are contacted by a search engine optimization company or the SEO person for a large group of websites offering you multiple one way link exchanges with half of their sites if you will link back to the other half of their sites. After a few weeks or months the links to your sites are deleted. The worst offender in this group is a prominent search engine optimization company located in India.

7. Your link starts out on a page with fair page rank usually attached to a domain with high page rank. But after a few weeks is moved to a boon docks page with no page rank that will never be indexed. – common amongst higher PR sites.

8. The link directory is on another domain with no page rank. When you click on the link to the directory on the home page, always watch the bar in the bottom of your browser window and see that the link you clicked is in fact on the domain with which you are exchanging links – watch especially for domain names that are very similar e.g. one letter different in the spelling or a .net instead of a .com and link pages that are hosted on the domain of a link management company. Also watch for redirects. If suspicious go back and click the link again. Often the redirected URL flashes up for only an instant or it just takes an inordinate time for the page to load compared to other pages on the site. If in doubt search for a site map - very popular with some owners of multiple bingo sites.

9. Sub domains of domains with no page rank. Sub domains are supposed to always rank lower than the parent domain. (Of late I have found a few sub domains with up to PR3 attached to a domain with no page rank) If the parent domain has a page rank of zero then link pages attached to that sub domain will almost always be zero so why trade a good link for a dud link?

10. We have never fallen for any in this group but many novice webmasters do so regularly. Beware of high PR sites offering you a link exchange on one of their inconsequential internal pages with the same PR as your index page in return for you placing a graphic link to their index page on your index page. This is a deliberate attempt to steal your hard earned traffic. A variation of this one is

Get The Right Promotional Product For Your Company
To find the right promotional product for your company can be time consuming and difficult. This is one of the reasons why some companies assign marketing agencies to do the work for them. Not all companies (especially the small business) have the budget to pay for these marketing agencies so they have to do all the work alone.What I have to do before I search for a promotional product ?The first step you should do is brainstorming. You have to ask yourself what you want to get printed on your promotional product and what you want to promote ?You want to promote 1. a product which your company sells to customers. 2. your company. 3. your homepage.The best way is to combine 2 of these 3 points to get the best afford. For example: Print your company address or logo(2) and the URL of your homepage(3) on the promotional product. Or you can print the name of one of your products(1) on it with a few describing words and the URL of the homepage(3) where your customers can find your product.After you have decided what you want to promote you have to think about which promotional product fits best to your company.In which industry do your company work ?Write down the words which are synonymously to your companies industry or the products you sell. For example if your company is a bank you can write down the words: money, dollar, credit. It will help you later to find the right product group o

u multiple one way link exchanges with half of their sites if you will link back to the other half of their sites. After a few weeks or months the links to your sites are deleted. The worst offender in this group is a prominent search engine optimization company located in India.

7. Your link starts out on a page with fair page rank usually attached to a domain with high page rank. But after a few weeks is moved to a boon docks page with no page rank that will never be indexed. – common amongst higher PR sites.

8. The link directory is on another domain with no page rank. When you click on the link to the directory on the home page, always watch the bar in the bottom of your browser window and see that the link you clicked is in fact on the domain with which you are exchanging links – watch especially for domain names that are very similar e.g. one letter different in the spelling or a .net instead of a .com and link pages that are hosted on the domain of a link management company. Also watch for redirects. If suspicious go back and click the link again. Often the redirected URL flashes up for only an instant or it just takes an inordinate time for the page to load compared to other pages on the site. If in doubt search for a site map - very popular with some owners of multiple bingo sites.

9. Sub domains of domains with no page rank. Sub domains are supposed to always rank lower than the parent domain. (Of late I have found a few sub domains with up to PR3 attached to a domain with no page rank) If the parent domain has a page rank of zero then link pages attached to that sub domain will almost always be zero so why trade a good link for a dud link?

10. We have never fallen for any in this group but many novice webmasters do so regularly. Beware of high PR sites offering you a link exchange on one of their inconsequential internal pages with the same PR as your index page in return for you placing a graphic link to their index page on your index page. This is a deliberate attempt to steal your hard earned traffic. A variation of this one is

Technology Marketing Secrets For Computer Consultants - VARs - and Solution Providers
"We all sell the same thing... there's no difference between what one company offers compared to another." Those are the words a manager of a large, but struggling technology solution provider revealed to me.Here's why that view is a problem...When you see yourself as marketing essentially the same technology products and services your competitors sell, you immediately become a "victim" to brutal price competition. You are reduced to a commodity where the company with the lowest price wins.Winning the lowest price war is the least profitable way to build a business. Lowest price attracts the most disloyal group of buyers in any market. I call them "the cheapskates".Second, your competitors can easily cut your legs out from under you, by beating your price. 'Winning' comes down to who's willing to earn less. Even maybe taking a loss.That's why communicating a competitive advantage that makes you the only logical choice is critical.If you can't see and articulate a clear competitive advantage, how much less will your potential client see a reason to choose you over someone else?There is a solution to the fierce competitive market. Cutting the rates for your managed service contracts isn't the way to go.There are more profitable ways to win the lion's share of the market without dropping your price. How?For starters, become a celebrity within your industry. Become the high-price leader who onl

back and click the link again. Often the redirected URL flashes up for only an instant or it just takes an inordinate time for the page to load compared to other pages on the site. If in doubt search for a site map - very popular with some owners of multiple bingo sites.

9. Sub domains of domains with no page rank. Sub domains are supposed to always rank lower than the parent domain. (Of late I have found a few sub domains with up to PR3 attached to a domain with no page rank) If the parent domain has a page rank of zero then link pages attached to that sub domain will almost always be zero so why trade a good link for a dud link?

10. We have never fallen for any in this group but many novice webmasters do so regularly. Beware of high PR sites offering you a link exchange on one of their inconsequential internal pages with the same PR as your index page in return for you placing a graphic link to their index page on your index page. This is a deliberate attempt to steal your hard earned traffic. A variation of this one is they have a number of new sites listed on their index page each month and visitors are encouraged to vote for the site they consider to be the best and you are asked to ask your visitors to vote for your site at the high ranked domain. The purpose is still the same as in the first example in this group.

11. We no longer trade links with sites using Linksmanager unless the link to our site is to be on a hard coded page. You can search in their search box for their link to your site and if they are still linking to you, your URL and site description will be returned but no information to show which page your link is on. Google usually indexes only a few pages in each category of dynamically generated link directories. If your link has not been added to an indexed page, it is unlikely to ever end up on one. When we had a large number of indexed back links, no link manager links were ever returned in a back link querry.

12. Be wary of link exchange requests from webmasters using anonymous e-mail addresses because when they delete your back link they also delete the anonymous e-mail address.

13. Beware of webmasters with PR 5 or above sites offering you a link exchange with a high PR site and an inspection of their link directory suggests that your link will end up on a non indexed page i.e. a useless link that is unlikely to ever improve. If the link exchange was with a PR 2 or 3 site there is at least reasonable potential for the PR of the page to increase if the link directory has been fairly constructed.

Reduce exposure to link scams

To reduce your exposure to such scams it is essential to carefully vet all potential link partners in the first instance. Enter link back partner details in a database. As an absolute minimum, enter their URL, the location of the link back on their site, the page rank of the page on which your link is located, the date of the link exchange and a real e-mail address for the contact person.

Use a good link checking program monthly and contact offenders as soon as you find your link is missing from their site. This is now essential to keep link partners honest. This problem is a direct consequence of the current page rank system and fierce competition for top rankings. It is easier to retain existing link partners than to continually find new ones.

Points to look for when Assessing Potential Link Partners

Before trading links, look carefully at the other site – 1. If there is no link to the link directory on the index page –Reject. You will get no traffic from that site.

2. Look at the structure of their link directory and count the number of clicks from their index page to where their link to you is likely to be located and then deduct that number from the PR of the site’s index page. If that page is PR3 and there are three clicks to get to the page on which your link will be located, that page will have a PR0. That link will be worthless unless the site gets a minimum of a PR4.

3. If you have not already done so, download Google’s tool bar. If the page rank bar is grayed out, when you are looking at a site, never trade links with that site. The grey bar is said to indicate that the site is banned by Google. I do not know if that is true but I have only ever seen two sites produce grey bars.

4. A growing number of sites with dynamically generated link directories have no page rank on any link pages even though the directories are often constructed in such a way that you would expect the page to rank to be 2 points below the home page. I do not know how most are achieving this. The visible way is to have multiple folders and index pages leading to the links pages and the number of clicks from the home page destroys any potential page rank for the link page. A rare method is to add a no index command for the link directory in their robots.txt file.

Just remember links to such sites are one way links from your site to their site. You give them a good link and they give you a worthless link. A link on a page with a PR0 is a non indexed link and carries no value regardless of the

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What is media training and who needs it? Learn the real scoop of why those in the public eye seek media training and what it does for them.

The knee-jerk response to prioritizing requirements is to mark everything as a must-have. “I need everything before the product becomes generally available. I want it ALL!” Give me a break.

80% of Americans are shy in at least in some situations, according to Dr. Phillip Zimbardo of Stanford University, who reported this finding in his book, SHYNESS.

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Member You - Reciprocal Linking Scams, What to Look for and How to Avoid Them

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