14 December 2008

Top 3 SEO Tips of 2008


Since 1998 I've spent the first several months of each year looking for the very best search engine optimization (SEO) tips of the previous year's end. This year I've come across the best SEO tips yet.

SEO Tip #1: Make Google Alerts Your Personal Online Spy

Google Alerts is a great way to let the world's biggest search engine be your personal online spy. This takes search engine optimization insider info to whole new level. Here's an excerpt straight from Google....

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

* monitoring a developing news story
* keeping current on a competitor or industry
* getting the latest on a celebrity or event
* keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams"



As you probably guessed, it's the second one we care about most, "keeping current on a competitor or industry."

Here's how it works... Each time Google finds a reference to the query or topic you request you will be sent an email with the details. This is like having an online spy to make sure competitors are not using your protected keywords (trademarked names, company names, etc.) It's also an instant identifier to know when your site or product is mentioned in a news story or even when a topic is hot so you can take advantage of the situation. It's the easiest way in the world to stop competitors' dirty tricks and identify trends that you can take instant advantage of.

It's fast, free and works every minute of every day. Let Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) do your most time consuming legwork while you reap the rewards!

SEO Tip #2: Optimize Your 404 Page and Always Be Found

"Error 404: Page Not Found" is a blessing that most Webmasters curse. Why? Getting a visitor on any page of your site is fantastic! Don't blow the opportunity. Not only can you make your "404" page a valuable sales tool, you can use the following search engine optimization techniques to attract customers in droves.

A.) Use your main keyword in your title, add a "pipe" (usually above the Enter key) and then use your secondary keyword. Here's as example for an SEO site "SEO - Search Engine Optimization Tips"

B.) Add some keyword rich content using one to two keywords for the page. If you have less than 250 words on the page, just use one keyword and use it no more than three times total. Bold the first use and italicize the second or third use. Keep in mind this is an "inactive" page so simply tell the visitor what your site is about and whet their appetite with a good description. Something like this works well... "Thank you for visiting SEO (bold) Group, Inc. We are sorry you landed on a missing page but don't worry, if you're looking for the very best search engine optimizations tips (bold), you're at the right place..." This will go on for a couple paragraphs or as long as you'd like then end it with something to the effect of "Please Click Here (link) to visit our site map or click any link to the left."

C.) Add your site's standard navigation system (bar, column, etc.) as mentioned above.

D.) Make the look and feel of the customized 404 page match your main site as closely as possible with a template, matched palette, cascading style sheets, etc.

E.) Create a link to the site map page if available, and make the link easy to find. You want your visitor off the 404 page and into your main content as quickly as possible.

Setting up a custom 404 page link usually takes less than five minutes on most major Web hosting companies like Godaddy.com. But whatever it takes, it's worth the effort.

SEO Tip #3: Get (Even More) Serious About Linking

I saved the most important for last. If you want to do well on any search engine, especially Google, linking is THE single MOST important thing you can do. It's that simple.

Here are the five things you MUST do to make your site #1 on Google:

A.) Find the highest page rank sites linking to your site AND your competitors' sites.

B.) Run monthly link campaigns and snatch up the best of the above identified Web sites.

C.) Run regular checks on what pages are still linking back to your site. Alsomake sure they did not move you from a high page rank page to a lower one (don't get cheated!)

D.) Eliminate any penalized sites you link to; ASAP!

E.) Check your search engine ranking AND your competitor's for each of your keywords every week. Do this, at the minimum, for Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista.

Inside Tip: Keeping up can be a lot of work so a lot of SEO Consultants (myself included) use SEO Elite (http://www.SEOeliteWeb.com) to do all the most difficult and time consuming work.

One last thing to know is that Google was originally a college student's project created for the sole purpose of defining a Web site's value by the sites that link to it. Twelve years later this is still it's main job. Linking is EVERYTHING to Google.

These few SEO tips are the very best of the best so use them wisely. Best of luck!


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Guaranteed Extra Cash Online




For college students and other people who feel burned out trying to balance paying the bills and living at the same time, ads like these can prove to be irresistible. Many of them make perfect sense and easily hook you based on good concepts. Unfortunately, many times the product or service does not match the brilliance of a great idea for making money from home or through the Internet. As I’ve learned myself, the further you go down this road, the more excited you get. You basically get hooked, and if you aren’t careful, you will end up working hard and falling further into debt than you can imagine. Much like gambling, the lure of easy money and independence can make just about anyone fall prey to work at home scams that feed off your dreams to get to your wallet so they can go on to the next victim.

Hopefully, you will never fall victim to these scam artists. However, the fact of the matter is that these scammers would not be wasting their time if they were not making any money. And as long as people continue to get mixed up in this business, these scammers are going to stick around to trick more and more people.


The best way to keep a scammer’s claws away from your credit card is to do thorough research on each opportunity that you are considering. This means doing much more than simply reading a bit about it online. In my personal experience, I have been taken by companies who were savvy enough to pollute the Internet with staged testimonials, guarantees, questionable references to big name endorsements, and even appearances in the Better Business Bureau.

A colleague of mine who invested in vending machine placement services even went so far as to physically go to the manufacturing plant to tour the warehouse as well as contact the Better Business Bureau of that state. What he received, in return, were twenty malfunctioning candy machines with a list of local businesses who had apparently agreed to receive them. Not only did none of these businesses know what he was talking about, many of them were hostile when he showed up to place them.

What you want to do is check message boards such as the ASK section of Yahoo.com. Another simple method of weeding out the scams from the genuine opportunities is to go to a search engine and simply type in the company name followed by the word “scam”. If you do this, and you are barraged by an endless list of complaints, you my friend have found a nugget of gold in a sea of mud.

In terms of the Better Business Bureau, it is best to contact them directly to ask about any complaints, and also find out how long a company has been listed. The Better Business Bureau operates state by state. They will be able to tell you if they have any complaints on file. If they do, you will want to avoid the opportunity at all costs. But if it appears that a company is doing business the right way, you can continue your own research.

Being in the Business Bureau is not necessarily that hard to accomplish. Many scammers can use their money and connections to set up a front to initially qualify for the Better Business Bureau just long enough for them to collect their cash from unsuspecting victims, close shop, create a new identity and start again.

Before you decide to do anything, attempt to get in touch with the company that you are interested in. Can you get a human being on the phone? Do they have an actually physical address? How long does it take them to respond to your e-mails, if at all? If you cannot even talk to the company before you start, there is not chance that they will be around when you really need them. I once made quite a bit of money selling vacation vouchers on auction sites. The marketing plan was sound, and the money saving vouchers was a hit. Only problem was, I could never get in touch with their customer service department to handle my customer inquiries and complaints once I realized that the promises that existed in writing on the vouchers were misleading at best. This proved to be such a problem that it took me over a year to recover from the negative publicity on my auction site.

Of course, there are legitimate home based businesses out there. With the Internet and all the low cost, web producing tools available, there seems to be a renaissance in entrepreneurship. Basically, just find a product or service you can market online, and do your research. Sell on EBay if you don’t want to build your own website. You can have a website their and all search engine marketing is already done by EBay. The Small Business Association has an office in downtown Tacoma and contains invaluable information on their website http://www.sba.com. Since small business is the backbone of our country economically, sources such as these are eager to help you create a plan with realistic expectations.

However, like anything else worthwhile, you have to do your homework and work hard at it. The problem is that too many people make you think you can practically go online and make money just clicking on a mouse. You want to steer clear of any business that asks to you to pay for their “Top Secret” e-book that will teach you how to make an automated income.”

Think about it, if you are in dire need of cash, can you imagine any other situation in which you would not only work for free, but pay for the privilege to work. There are no magic formals or secrets worth paying for. All of the information in these e-books can be found for free through your own research if you have common internet skills.

If you don’t want to work hard and just make a few easy extra bucks without donating your blood or volunteering to be a guinea pig, it is possible to make some good extra money filling out online surveys or through mystery shopping. There are real opportunities out there which require no fee to get started. Not only that, several of them will even give you a $5 bonus just for signing up. If a company such as this is legitimate, they would be making lots of money through the success of its members. Companies that require that $49.97 start up fee only make money through the fee and only want to teach you how to get other people to do the same. The products are all useless lists and general information that anyone with a functioning mind could figure out on their own, or get for free by doing their own research.

In 12 years of trying to make a living on the Internet, the following are the best companies I have ever encountered for making a few extra bucks filling out surveys, playing games and mystery shopping. They probably won’t pay the rent, but if you’re interested in making an extra $400 or $500 a month or eating out at nice restaurants and going to movies for free, you may want to check these out:

Mystery Shopping Providers Association: ." target=new>http://www.mysteryshop.org/shoppers/">.

This site contains all the information you will ever need on starting up as a mystery shopper. It is also a portal for the best sites to go to for mystery shopping jobs online, and they don’t require that you invest a penny.

InboxDollars.com. (you can sign up for free and get $5 just for signing up. You can make a few hundred dollars in one day, theoretically, if you are willing to use a credit card to sign up for free or paid trials. Just make sure you have the patience to fill out the long surveys and keep detailed records so you can remember to cancel your free trials before you get charged. Also, you can fill out surveys to make a dollar or two which are completely free. I’ve made about $400 with this site.


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10 December 2008

Playstation 3 Buying Guide

Have you ever bought a product or service from the internet? Me too.
You think now is the perfect time for you to buy Playstation 3? . Or maybe you want to know more about what inside Playstation 3 and what is the difference between Playstation 3 with Xbox 360? Maybe you need to read the buying guide for PS 3 at ShopWiki

ShopWiki revolutionizes online shopping since it finds every store on the internet by crawling like Google. Traditional shopping sites will only show you stores that have paid for placement, but ShopWiki will give a shopper everything. For a shopper, this means they can find anything and everything for sale on the web at ShopWiki.com.

You can find a lot of useful information all about PS3, The Controller
, Cool Features
and all detail Specifications Provided by Sony

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What Are Pay Per Click Reports?


A pay per click report will inform you of how many visitors you have had to your website, what keyword they used to get there, and some monitor how long they were there. These reports can be daily, weekly, or monthly. There are free pay per click services however they do not give you all the information that you can get from a paid service.

Companies mainly use a monthly report on the traffic to their websites. In order to utilize the pay per click service to it’s utmost ability, they must report data from web marketing as well as other crucial information. This will allow the user to examine their marketing strategies to decide if they are working.



Some pay per click companies put a tracking code in your website to monitor sales. How many customers have signed in and what they are interested in is also tracked. Most will prepare a report that is easy to understand. It will contain information about the sales generated by the people using pay per click, visitor breakdown, and anything else they think is of particular interest to the website owner.

The benefits of using pay per click are invaluable to companies that want to use their website to generate more income for the company. With so many people having access to the internet, it is the number one way that customers seek and find the company that they want to use for their needs. These reports will allow you to see how well your company is doing by how many internet visitors you have each day.

One of the benefits of using a pay per click report is the tracking of keyword use. When advertising your business, keywords are used to direct traffic to your website. When you use pay per click the reports you get will show which keywords worked the best and which ones you need to replace. A good keyword will have more hits on it and the keywords with the least hits means you need to find another. By doing this you will know the difference.

The reports can show you how to optimise your initial web site page to get more visitors. There are certain items that people look for when going to a web page. With the reports from pay per click, the ones that work the best will be suggested so you can get the most from your website.

Pay per click reports can help you to know for sure how many people have logged into your website. It is the best way to be aware of just how well your advertising is doing. You could advertise in the newspaper, on a billboard, or by direct mail but how are you going to know the number of people who have seen your advertisement? Plain and simply, you are not.

By using pay per click you will know the exact number of visits to your website. This report will become an important tool to help you make the most of your web page and give you the knowledge you need to optimise the site you use for generating income.


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Effective Internet Advertising


Free internet advertising is one very important method for promoting your products and services to thousands of free ads. You've probably found this article because you did a search for "free advertising" on an internet search engine. If you have taken the time to research search engine placement, methods of obtaining a high search engine ranking, or Internet advertising, you have probably heard of Google Adwords.

Two of the most popular and successful advertising techniques on the Internet are pay per click campaigns and natural search engine optimization campaigns. If your company is not competing at the level it should be, perhaps it is time you looked into focusing more of your time and efforts into Internet advertising techniques that are successful. You will not only get the best results with a carefully designed system for generating Internet advertising for your blog, but you will also be able to sustain good results over a long period of time, which is what serious business and successful entrepreneurship is all about.


With a good well designed selling system in place, not only will you be able to get the best results while generating Internet advertising for your blog, but success will be virtually guaranteed. This difference with blog advertising rates is important because in the print media world, ad rates can not go below a certain point because if they do, the publication will cease to be profitable. In the print media, space is limited by the cost of production which keeps ad rates high and makes the balance of content versus advertising critical to the financial success of any print publication that relies on advertising.

Free internet advertising makes it easy for you to put free ads on several of the premier quality web sites whenever you want, for free. You know that you are visiting the forum merely for the free advertising for your website but it is better not to make this obvious if you want other members to react well to your advertising. Internet forum etiquette demands that you spend a little time "lurking" ie logging in at the forum and reading previous and current threads before you even think of starting to use the forum for advertising.

Whether you write your own articles or pay a ghostwriter to write your articles for you, the combined cost of creating and distributing your article is far less than the value of advertising that you will receive in exchange for the reprint use of your article. When you write articles that are consistent with the topics that your potential clientele will read, you are able to consistently target the people you need to reach with your advertising. If an advertiser is already paying 20 cents per click and your blog Internet advertising rate card charges them what works out to about 5 cents per click and there is a promise of the same or an even better conversion rate, you have won over that advertiser.

I have been paying for traffic and one of the best sources of targeted traffic is through pay per click search engines (PPC) or pay for placement search alternatives like Google adwords or Yahoo Sponsor Listings, formerly Overture. Google adwords and Yahoo Sponsor Listings are the kings of pay per placement search engines. And if you are in a highly competitive niche, the cost per visitor in pay per click search engines is pumping up day by day.


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28 October 2008

Protect Your Overall Health


Nowadays we are living in a fast changing condition thus need to keep our mind sharp and our body healthy. Each year many Americans people have problems with oral health. But with proper regular dental checkups can help detect, prevent and treat gum disease and related disorders.
ChooseAmeriplan for individuals, and take a big step toward protecting your overall health.

Ameriplan is a discount medical and dental plan and an alternative to insurance. Also features a discount supplemental health benefit program for members and physician providers.

Ameriplan offers a great home based business opportunity. You can enjoy working at home which means you are a home business owner

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Get Great Traffic By Thinking Small


Here is one method that you can use to get traffic to your web site. It relies on choosing some niche keywords based on your web site theme. The process is fairly simple and can be expanded to get tons of traffic to your site. Here is how.

It is often tempting to chase after popular themes and then select the major keyword as your target. However this is not a great move, well, not in the beginning anyway. You first have to build your credibility with the search engines before they will place you near the top.

The key is to choose a keyword phrase that people are using in the search engines such as Google but have very few web sites that cater to that keyword phrase. How do you find such valuable keyword phrases? Here’s how!



If you use a software tool such as Good Keywords or the Google AdSense tool, it will return you many different keyword phrases. Look for specific phrases that look a bit odd. One of the ones that I look for are those that are book titles. Sometimes the words are jumbled but after you have gone through a few of them you will easily recognize them because initially they seem to make no sense. This is often because the words in the title of the book have been sorted into alphabetic order.

If you choose this phrase and set up a web page targeting that phrase, you can then produce a few paragraphs on the book based on reviews at any of the book sellers such as Amazon. You can then have affiliate links to the major booksellers and receive an affilaite commission from them.

I have used this technique to target books on Poker which have attracted traffic where I can offer either the book of their interest or to one of the gaming clubs or to my other web pages on Poker.

A book with a similar title is “Liar’s poker: rising through the wreckage on wall street”. The tools indicate that it was searched for in Overture (Yahoo) 12,043 in one month, so probably 120,000 in Google. Yet depending on how it is entered, Google shows that there ar only 997 sites that cater for that phrase. That’s pretty good odds for you to get a high ranking in the search engines. You can then offer this traffic links to products and services related to the finance industry – a high paying industry.

If you can find other books related to this them, then you can aggregate the traffic through links to your home page. Eventually you will raise your page rank to aa fairly good level.

This is a method that you can refine on an ongoing basis to improve the natural search traffic to your web site



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Using A Blog To Promote Your Business



Using a blog to promote your wellness business is a very effective marketing tool. What is great about using blogs is that you can promote your wellness business absolutely free. There are many places on the Internet that you can set up a blog without it costing you a single penny. With a new home business it is important to maximize promotion without spending all your profits on advertising and marketing. Using a blog is one of the methods that you can use to promote your wellness business without it emptying your business budget.



You do not have to be a computer wiz, internet wiz or programmer to set up an attractive blog. There are many places on the Internet that have blogs already set up for you. All that you have to do is create a free account, select the name for you blog and start making blog posts. It’s literally that simple without requiring that you know how to program or pay any type of membership fees or hosting fees. This is why blogging is ideal for promotion because it’s so simple to do.

Once you have your blog selected and your account created, it is time to name your blog. When selecting a name choose something that fits both the wellness industry and compliments the types of products that you will be promoting for your wellness business. For example, if you sell weight loss products you could name your blog something such as Skinny Tips. This would let others know the general theme of the blog.

The blog setup will ask you to create a description for you blog. Take the time to write out several descriptions until you have just the perfect one. The description that you post on the blog will often be what is used when search engines pick up your blog and list it in the pages. For the example of the skinny tips blog you could do a description such as helpful tips and information for weight loss. The description then further explains your blog so that more people are likely to read your posts because they will know what the blog is going to be about before they start reading.

What should you write about for your blog? One of the top things to write about is the general topic of the blog. Blogs with a lot of different topics can get confusing to readers. They are successful but the purpose of this type of business blog is to promote your wellness home business. If for example you had the Skinny Tips blog, you could write short pieces about losing weight, eating well and exercising. You can even write reviews for the different products that you are promoting. In the reviews, you can link directly to the product to encourage visitors to visit your main wellness small home business Internet site.

The primary purpose of blogs is to provide information. Providing a great deal of information is the key to a successful blog for business. You get people that would not normally visit a wellness product site to come and read your blog. After reading your blog on a regular basis, visitors will naturally go and visit your business site. Use the blog as a portal to get traffic to your website and not as a big advertisement. People will stay and read the information if it is informative and entertaining.



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14 September 2008

The Top 7 Overlooked E-bay Success Tips


Last year alone, millions of people made a profit on e-bay. Some were just selling odds and ends, while some ran huge businesses exclusively on e-bay. The amount of commerce done on the internet is only expected to increase, making prospects for e-bay users bright. You very well may be one of the people who's discovered the great benefits of making money from e-bay auctions. I myself have been an e-bay user for a little over a year and have had great success with my auctions.

When my friend began her business on e-bay selling high end purses, it started out quite rocky. Her auctions weren't getting the hits she wanted and usually sold off of one bid, instead of creating the bidding frenzy that beautiful bags like she had should have!

So, she called me up knowing I had been successfully using e-bay for almost a year at the time. She gave me her login information (we're best friends- she trusts me!) and asked me to check her her sales and current auctions and see if I noticed where the problem was. When I saw her current auctions, alot became obvious!

So, I compiled a list of things that I had used which had made me successful which I suggested she implement into her own auctions. I even revised the auctions she had active at the time. One of those auctions- a gorgeous brown Coach purse- sold for $546.00. She had listed it for $125.00. It was her biggest sale yet and she was thrilled.


The funny thing is, the methods I use are not some internet guru secrets. They are just things I picked up during my time using e-bay, but seem to be overlooked alot of the time. Here are what I have found to be the top 7 overlooked tips for successful e-bay auctions:

1. The Importance of a Good Title- When you're creating a title for your auction, you've gotta think like a buyer. When I checked my friend's listings, she had a beautiful, brand new brown patchwork Coach purse titled as 'coach purse'. This is way too general! A buyer knows what they want; in your title, include color, any brand name, main keywords that people will search, and condition is possible. I changed her title to "Brown & Beige Patchwork Coach Purse-Brand New". By the next day, it had over 100 new hits. Previously her auctions were hardly even reaching 100 hits throughout the whole 5 days.

Another mistake people often make is writing things like 'The best wristwatch ever!!!!" Even if you do believe you're selling the best wristwatch ever, is this really what a buyer is searching for? Of course not. Use a more descriptive, detailed title like 'Gold Armani Wrist Watch w/ Leather Band-New".

One more thing when it comes to titles: make sure keywords are included. For example, whatever the item you're selling actually IS, include that in the title. On e-bay, I mostly sell high end women's heels. I always make sure to include in my title 'Womens Shoes" because this is a common keyword. An example of a title I would use is:

"Brown Marc Jacobs Womens Silver Stud Pumps Shoes"- I know that 'pumps shoes' sounds awkward, but many women will search for "marc jacobs womens shoes", and I want to be sure my item shows up in the results. Use these tips when creating your title and you'll be sure to see increased traffic to your auction.

2. Give honest descriptions- Sure, that stain, tear, or other defect may be sooo small that it's almost impossible to notice. Still, mention it in your auction. If you send an item out and a buyer realizes that the item has a defect that you didn't mention in the auction description, they will be disappointed and very possibly leave you negative feedback. Anyone familiar with e-bay knows that feedback is everything. It is what makes people feel comfortable buying from you and proves that you are a trustworthy, reliable buyer.

It's best to provide a photo of any defects so potential buyers can see what they're getting. And believe me, if you say that there's a defect but don't show a picture, people will e-mail you asking for some. I have sometimes had a defect so tiny on a shoe that I couldn't even get it to show up in a picture. If that's the case, say it! Provide a picture of the area where the defect is and also explain in your listing that it's so miniscule that you can't get it to show up in the picture. Buyers will trust you much more and be way more willing to buy from you in the future. You also won't have to deal with an unsatisfied customer who can damage your feedback rating and make future potential buyers hesitant or even completely dissaude them from buying from you.

3. Offer International Shipping- So often I see sellers who are providing great products but don't offer international shipping. Let me tell you- about 30% of my sales are to international buyers, and very often international buyers will pay more for products. I never understood why people are restraining their own sales potential by not offering international shipping.

Remember, the buyer is the one who pays the shipping, not you!! Even though international shipping is expensive, you are not paying it! And don't be discouraged thinking sending things internationally is difficult- it's super simple and not much different then sending things within the country. If you use USPS (the method I find most efficient for prices and service), you may have to fill out a short customs sheet that takes no more than a minute. Don't be lazy! Offer international shipping and see your sales soar!

4. Send a Thank You card with your purchase- You can get packs of black decorative cards from any general store, WalMart, or even discount chains like TJ Maxx. Buy a couple packs and with people's packages, send a nice thank you card.

You don't have to write a dialog, just a simple "Name of Buyer, Thanks so much for your bid! Enjoy your purchase, and I hope to do business with you in the future! Your Name or Business Name" If you want to really go all out and rake in some super feedback, include a small free gift. When I sell a pair of shoes I usually include a free headband or pair of earrings. If you'd like to try this out, try to find something that compliments whatever it is that you're selling. You could also include a little bag of candy or some tea light candles (go to the dollar store for great knick knacks and free gift ideas). Use your imagination to make your customers satisfied and loyal!

5. Offer combined shipping Buyers love combined shipping. If you offer a good combined shipping deal, and have more than one item they're interested in, they're ten times more likely to buy both items. Some people choose to determine combined shipping depending upon the two items the buyer is interested in, while others have set shipping rules. A good example is to charge $_.__ for the first item and offer to send the second item free, or for $1.00-$2.00 more. Usually the additional weight of the package isn't much so it's possible to offer combined shipping without losing any profit at all. Determine your own rates depending on the weight of the items you sell and the shipping service you use.

6.Keep communication with Buyers open and offer more pictures upon request. Of course in your listing you must include good pictures to attract buyers. Most people include 2-4 pictures per listing, depending on the size of the items and any special details you've got to show. I always include at least 3 pictures, and more if I feel the item needs more pictures of some detail it has that is unique.

Even though you have already provided your buyers with good pictures, it's helpful to write in your listing "Contact me with any questions or for more pictures. (with your contact info)" This is another method that makes buyers instantly trust you more and feel more comfortable placing bids. They feel that the communication lines are open and that they can get more info on the item if needed. And don't be discouraged thinking that you'll spend the whole day responding to e-mails requesting more photos; If you've already included good pictures, most people won't bother asking for more. Of over 50 listings where I've written this, only one person ever asked me for additional pictures. Check your e-mail though at least once a day to see if you've got any questions, people love quick responses and will reward you with good feedback for your effective communication.

7. Always use Delivery Confirmation- This is a biggie! Make sure that when you post your shipping costs, delivery confirmation costs are included so buyers aren't questioning the extrra expense when they receive their invoice. Delivery confirmation is a cheap effective way to ensure both your own and the buyer's investment.

First of all, you do not want to get scammed. What? Scammed? Yes, it happens. I know that most of the scamming referred to on e-bay is about sellers who scam their buyers, but don't be naive; we sellers are also at risk. Although the majority of the e-bay community is good people who are just trying to conduct legitimate transactions, there are those rotten apples which make it hard for all of us.

The usefulness of delivery confirmation was brought to my attention my an acquaintence of mine who does some selling on e-bay. He sold some very high quality digital remote for around $250.00. He shipped the item using delivery confirmation, and after about a week told me he received an e-mail from the buyer saing she'd never received the product. She filed a whole complaint with e-bay and made a big fuss about it. GOOD THING he had the delivery confirmation number and was able to prove that the product had been shipped to her address. Don't let one of these scammers get a chance to cheat you out of your money.

Making delivery confirmation a requirement is also something that will make serious bidders trust you more and see that you're a legitimate business person who wants to secure shipment. Think about it; if someone requests NOT to use delivery confirmation, you can guess where their intentions are. The extra .75 is not breaking anyone's piggy bank, so don't feel bad about it.

There you have it! Use these highly useful yet highly overlooked tips to generate more traffic to your auctions and enjoy higher sale prices. To e-bay success!

Check out http://www.freelancemommystudio.com for more e-bay and work at home tips and programs!



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The Battle of the Browsers – The History and the Future of Internet Browsers



With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.


People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Origins

The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer

Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

....................Netscape.......IE
October 1998..........64%.........32.2%
April 1998............70%.........22.7%
October 1997..........59.67%......15.13%
April 1997............81.13%......12.13%
October 1996..........80.45%......12.18%
April 1996............89.36%.......3.76%

In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.

Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.

By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 – 2005

These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.

2005 – Present

Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.

The Future of Web Browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.

However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.

Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.

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08 May 2008

Tips dan Trik : Cara cepat mengetahui nilai Kurs mata uang asing


Tips dan Trik : Cara cepat mengetahui nilai Kurs mata uang asing

Sudah pada tahu, bagaimana cara cepat mengetahui nilai Kurs mata uang asing di internet? Ada cara sederhana untuk mengetahuinya yaitu dengan mengunakan fasilitas situs pencari (search engine) semacam google atau yahoo.

Misalnya anda membutuhkan informasi berapa kurs atau nilai mata uang asing tertentu sebagai contoh nilai uang sebesar 373 SGD (Singapore dollar) kedalam rupiah. Maka anda cukup mengetik di kolom pencarian pada situs yahoo.com yaitu 373 SGD to IDR .

Hasilnya pada yahoo.com keluar sbb :
1-10 of 64,600 for 373 SGD to IDR (About) - 0.30 sec
373.00 Singapore Dollars = 2,386,777.41 Indonesian Rupiahs


Pada kolom pencarian data di google.com hasilnya sbb :
Urutan 1 - 10 dari sekitar 31,800 hasil penelusuran untuk 373 SGD to IDR. (0.10 detik)
373 Singapore dollars = 2.38614317 million Indonesian rupiahs

Dari kedua search engine tersebut yahoo.com lebih detail untuk memisahkan nominal pada nilai kurs, sedangkan google.com lebih unggul sepersekian detik dalam memunculkan data. Lamanya pencarian dari search engine tergantung koneksi jaringan internet yang anda pergunakan. Dan tentunya kurs nilai mata uang diatas jangan dijadikan tolak ukur, cukup sebagai referensi saja, karena fluktasi atau pergerakan mata uang sering kali berubah.

Contoh lain jika kita ingin mengetahui kurs dollar Amerika ke dalam bentuk Yuan ketik 373 USD to yuan maka hasilnya sbb:
373.00 U.S. Dollars = 2,763.00 Chinese Yuans dalam waktu 0.29 sec

Cara ini cukup membantu anda jika anda berniat melakukan booking online untuk pembayaran dengan mengunakan mata uang asing. Misalnya jika anda memesan hotel di Eropa yang menggunakan mata uang Euro dan atau memesan tiket pesawat di China yang kebetulan kita ingin mengetahui kurs tersebut dalam bentuk rupiah.

Selain mengunakan fasilitas mesin cari yahoo.com atau google.com, fitur di beberapa merk telepon genggam keluaran terbarupun menyediakan fasilitas untuk mengetahui nilai mata uang. Sebagai contoh pada salah satu telepon genggam merk Nokia seri 2626. Caranya lihat pada fungsi menunya, kemudian pilih aplikasi selanjuanya ada fitur kurs dan anda tinggal masukan jumlah yang akan dikonversi.

Untuk mengetahui secara validasi atau kus terbaru mata uang yang lebih akurat sebaiknya memang mengetahui langsung dari Bank pemerintah. Walau demikian nilai mata uang bisa diketahui juga dengan melalui sms. Hanya saja program khusus di beberapa bank mengharuskan seseorang untuk mendaftarkan dahulu keanggotaannya jika ingin mengetahui nilai kurs mata uang melalui sms banking.


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26 March 2008

Credit Card vs. Debit Card - What Are The Differences


Ah, the “good old days”. If you are a baby boomer, like me, then you probably remember how important it was to rush to the bank on payday. You had to get there before the teller lanes closed so that you could have your “cash allowance” for the week. Otherwise, if you needed cash you had to write a check, then go to the bank, and “cash” the check for real cash.

Fortunately the days of the mad rush to get cash from the bank are long gone. We now enjoy the convenience of using a nearby automatic teller machine (ATM) or you can even get “cash back” at your local grocery, hardware or convenience store.

The card you use at the ATM is known as a debit card. When debit cards first appeared it was easy to tell them apart from credit cards. Debit cards didn’t have a credit card company logo on them; instead, they usually just had your bank name, your account number and your name.


Today debit cards look exactly like credit cards even carrying the same logos. Both types of cards can be swiped at the checkout counter , used to make purchases on the internet, or to pay for the fill-up at the gas pump.

When you use your debit card to make a purchase, it’s just like using cash. The account that is attached to your debit card, in most cases your checking account, is automatically debited when you use your debit card. The cost of your purchase is deducted from the funds you have in that account.

On the other hand, when you use your credit card to make a purchase you are using someone’s else’s money, specifically the issuer of the credit card, usually a banking institution.

In effect, you agree to pay them back the money you borrowed to make your purchase. In addition you will also pay interest on the money “loaned” to you at the rate which you agreed to when you applied for their credit card. This is known as the annual percentage rate (APR).

While the two cards might act and look alike, the levels of consumer protection that each type of card provides can be different.

Under federal law, if someone steals your credit card you're only responsible to pay the first $50 of unauthorized charges. However, if you notify the credit card issuer before a thief is able to make any charges you may be free from all liability. If the credit card is not physically present when an unauthorized or fraudulent purchase is made, such as over the internet, you’re also free from liability for those charges.

MasterCard and Visa offer zero-liability protection where you won’t pay any charges if someone uses your credit card to make an unauthorized purchase.

The protection offered to debit card fraud is similar but with a few exceptions. For example, your liability under federal law is limited to $50, the same as for a credit card, but only if you notify the issuer within two business days of discovering the card's loss or theft. Your liability for debit card fraud can jump up to $500 if you don’t report the loss or theft within two business days.

And if you are the type of person that gives a passing glance to your monthly bank statement, you could be totally liable for any fraudulent debit card charges if you wait 60 days or more from the time your statement is mailed.

Visa and MasterCard zero-liability protection applies to your debit card but only for transactions that do not involve the use of your PIN (personal identification number).

Additional protection against fraudulent use of your credit or debit cards may be available through your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance. Check your policy or with your agent for more information about your coverage.

Also be aware that you should contact your card issuer by certified letter, return receipt requested, after you’ve contacted them by phone to protect your consumer rights.

As for which card to use for what type of purchase, most experts agree that you should use your debit card for the same type of purchases you’d make as if you were using cash. Therefore, it makes more sense to use your debit card than your credit card at the grocery store or gas station (provided you have sufficient funds to cover these purchases of course).

You should avoid using your debit card for any online purchase or for something which is expensive. Why ? The main reason is that it is much easier to dispute a charge when you use your credit card. If your gold-plated, limited edition, hip-swinging Elvis wall clock arrives broken, your credit card company will remove the charge until the problem is resolved.

With your debit card you are stuck dealing with the merchant directly to resolve any problems with a purchase, even if your banking institution could really use a gold-plated, limited edition, hip-swinging Elvis wall clock of their very own.

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22 March 2008

Link Exchanges


Link Exchanging is the process of exchanging text links or banner links between websites. The use of link exchanges helps improve traffic, through numerous inbound links so users on other websites can click through. Exchanging links is normally a free process, which makes link exchanges cost effective. Another benefit of exchanging links is that it helps improve placement in the search engines.

Link exchanges have been used by webmasters for years as a means of direct marketing. Recently, this practice has gained more popularity among webmasters due to the fact search engines prefer websites that have many inbound links, thus improving positions in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). To the search engines, this is an accurate means of determining the importance of websites. This practice by the search engines to rank websites has helped lead to the popularity of linked-based search engines, like Google.


There are various ways to initiate a link exchange with another website. The primary way of beginning a link exchange is to email another webmaster and ask to exchange links. Another way to find websites looking to exchange links is to visit webmaster discussion boards. These websites might have link exchange forums or link exchange directories where webmasters can request link exchanges from a specific category or have open requests to allow any website to exchange a link.

With the importance of link exchanges, many types of link exchange websites have emerged as a source for webmasters. There are 2 types of link exchange directories. Paid directories make the process of exchanging links easier, but cost money and usually require software to be placed on the webmasters website to assist with the link exchange. Free link exchange directories have no cost, except they require the webmaster to manually add each website. Webmasters can have complete control over links when part of a free link exchange.

Recently some marketing companies have stated that search engines are no longer placing a heavy importance on reciprocal links. The consensus is that popularity of a website is now gauged by incoming one way links. The experts also agree that in addition to having numerous inbound links, the relevance of the linking websites is very important. Link exchanges between complimenting websites is important. Webmasters do not have to link directly with competitors, but should link with websites that have industry relevance. Having a website link with no relevance could potentially negatively affect Search Engine Result Pages.

Websites that have completed many link exchanges will usually experience increased traffic through direct clicks and search engine results. There are various ways for webmasters to find linking websites through direct email contact or link exchange directories. It is important for webmasters to check the relevancy of the links that are being adding as links that have little or no relevance might negatively affect their placement. The use of link exchanges by webmasters will continue to be an important and useful means of marketing websites and improving search engine placement.



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Easy SEO Tips You Can Use Today


Websites are only as effective as the number of visitors who see the content. If the search engines are ignoring your site, it definitely won’t get a lot of hits. Therefore, you need to try these tips for getting your site noticed by the search engines right away...

- Use Google Sitemaps to get your inner pages indexed. Many sites have a problem when it comes to getting their inner pages indexed. Luckily Google has a solution to help webmasters overcome this problem. Google Sitemaps (www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps) is an easy to use tool that allows you to tell Google about every page of your site. Although it won’t help your rankings, it may get more of your pages in the index, which could mean more traffic.

- Make sure your link anchor text is varied. Search engines penalize sites that seem to have used link exchange services. How they spot these sites is by looking at the incoming links. If the anchor text on every link is the same, then there is a good chance that software and not a human generated the links. Instead of using an automated service, take the time to submit link exchanges one at a time and make sure to vary the link text. This gives a more natural look to your incoming links.


- Use terms related to your keyword phrases in your copy. As the search engines become more sophisticated, they are better able to look at all of the content on a page and determine what it is about. What they hope to find is content that is well written for the end user – and not just for the search engines. By using synonyms and words related to your keyword phrases throughout the page, you are showing the search engines that you are writing copy that is truly useable to their searchers. As important as it is to include your keyword phrases in your copy, it’s more important to write naturally so that it makes sense to your human readers!

- Find out what your competitors are doing. Although the information does not come cheap, there are services that provide very detailed reports on your competitors including the traffic they get, what keywords generate that traffic and from which search engines. If you’re in a highly competitive market it might be worth checking out http://www.hitwise.com

- If you use keywords in your file names, don't overdo it. If your keyword phrase includes 5 words you won't be doing yourself any favors to save your homepage file as “here_are_all_my_keywords.html”. This looks like you’re trying to stuff your keywords in anywhere and everywhere! Instead choose a system for naming your files that makes it easy to tell what they are, without worrying about cramming in every keyword the page is optimized for.

The new buzzword among site developers is optimization. And with good reason. Unlike the past when only the appearance of keywords mattered, search engines now rank pages based upon many different factors. As you can see from the information presented above, you can help to get your site seen by the search engines with just a small investment of your time.

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6 Secret Traffic Strategies


Building a website is not all you need to do. Once you have a site you need to know how to drive traffic to the site. The following are 6 traffic strategies that you can apply to immediately drive targeted traffic to your website. Learn how to transform your site quickly and easily.

The key to succeeding in any internet related business is traffic. So then, how do you get visitors to flow to your site? Driving customers, clients, or readers to make your website a place that they regularly visit is really not hard to do. Driving traffic does not just happen on its own. You need to plan and execute the plan to make it happen.



1. Consider visiting other sites that are similar to yours. Visit the blog or forum of these sites and post a message with a back link to your site. A back link is simply the URL (address) or your site. Needless to say you need to put the back link in the context of a short sentence or message. If the site allows you to have a signature, then add a link to your site in your signature.

2. Create a blog with a RSS feed that notifies subscribers whenever you have updated information. Then create new content in your blog regularly. You will find that others will begin to link to you from their own pages and list you as a valuable source of information.

3. Start with Free traffic techniques and then graduate to paid traffic. Makes sense? Common sense will make you successful sooner! Traffic exchanges can quickly bring in a lot of traffic. There are plenty of good free traffic resources. Consider using Traffic Swarm. Open a free account or sign up as a pro. I started with a free account then graduated to pro. Pro will allow you to gain more points sooner and benefit from your downline.

4. SEO mean Search Engine Optimization and is one of the best things you can do for your business. SEO will help you generate targeted traffic for your website. Targeted traffic means that the people that visit your website will actually be looking for what you have to offer! Techniques like keyword density within paragraphs as well as keyword placement within the title of the webpage, Meta tags and the bolding, underline and italicizing of keywords within the webpage are a few of the SEO techniques that will impact traffic to your site. You may learn more about this at enlightenedsource.org

5. Use safe linking practices. Set up linking arrangements that appear natural. You only want to link to site related to your keywords and target market. Just having links is not what you want to do. In fact you will be penalized for just having links. It is not the number of links that matter. What matters is if the sites you link to be related to your site and that those site you link to have a rank of 3 or higher.

6. Good site content is very important. Search engines love content, and so do your visitors! Fresh content will keep your visitors coming back to your website at their own will and you’ll naturally get higher results at search engines


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20 March 2008

BEFORE


Today before you think of saying an unkind word
Think of someone who can't speak

Before you complain about the taste of your food
Think of someone who has nothing to eat

Before you complain about your husband or wife
Think of someone who's crying out to God for a companion

Today before you complain about life
Think of someone who went too early to heaven

Before you complain about your children
Think of someone who desires children but they're barren

Before you argue about your dirty house; someone didn't clean or sweep
Think of the people who are living in the streets

Before whining about the distance you drive
Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet

And when you are tired and complain about your job
Think of the unemployed, the disabled and those who wished they had your job

But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another
Remember that not one of us are without sin and we all answer to one maker

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down
Put a smile on your face and thank God you're alive and still around


Life is a gift
Live it...
Enjoy it...
Celebrate it...
And fulfill it.


And while you are at it give love to someone today
Love someone with what you do and the words you say
Love is not meant to be kept locked inside of us and hidden
So give it away "Give Love to someone today!"

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15 March 2008

Lion Air Sucks



Sharing pengalaman..agar temen-temen yang baru mulai bekerja di luar negeri lebih mempersiapkan diri apalagi bila menggunakan LION AIR.

Kejadian ini terjadi sekitar awal Maret,hari Minggu tgl 2-Maret-2008

Dimulai ketika saya akan mempersiapkan diri berangkat ke singapura dengan tujuan untuk bekerja disana..yang kebetulan ada tawaran bekerja disana secara Permanen.

Singkat kata saya mendapatkan 1 tiket one way jurusan Singapura dengan no.flight JT 150 berangkat hari Minggu pukul 11.15 siang.

Guna menghindari hal2 yang tidak diinginkan (seperti macet,banjir,dll),saya dan keluaga pengantar berangkat sekitar pukul 8 pagi. Perjalanan dari Bogor berjalan lancar pagi itu, dan tiba di bandara Soekarno Hatta pemberangkatan internasional (terminal berapa,lupa deh) sekitar pukul 9.15.


Setelah pemeriksaan tiket pesawat & check tas + bagasi selesai,giliran boarding pass yang pada waktu itu belumlah terlalu ramai antriannya.
Perasaan bercampur aduk karena membayangkan akan meningalkan keluarga serta banyak hal yang lain yang membuat sedikit gelisah, apalagi ketika antrian sebelah mulai ada yang ngomel-ngomel (kebetulan juga dari Lion Air jurusan Singapura) karena mengalami permasalahan ngehang pada pada salah satu printer mereka (dan butuh waktu yang cukup lama untuk kembali berjalan normal)

Ahirnya setelah tiba giliran saya pada barisan paling depan,dengan sedikit senyuman tiket + passpor langsung dicek. Tidak lama berselang petugasnya kebetulan perempuan:
Petugas1 :Tujuannya apa
saya :Untuk bekerja
Petugas1 :ini paspornya baru ya soalnya ga ada stempel visa didalamnya
saya : iya, kan saya baru mulai kerja disana dan saya juga baru bikin passpor jadi
memang mana mungkin udh ada cap or stempelnya (masih bisa tersenyum)
Petugas1 :wah saya tidak berani memberangkatkan bapak karena passpornya masih baru.
saya : loh emangnya kenapa mbak? (mulai waswas)
Petugas1 :Tolong bapak,bicara dulu dengan atasan saya ya(sambil mempersilahkan saya pergi ke counter yang diujung.


Petugas2 : bapak mau ke singapura ya..., paspornya kok ga ada stempel visanya nih
(diulang lagi)
saya : Pak..saya ini baru dapat tawaran untuk bekerja disana,dan langsung
bikin paspor..makanya paspornya masih baru belum ada apa-apanya.
(langsung saya tunjukkan copy dokumen penunjang untuk bekerja,
surat persetujuan dari pemerintah singapura untuk working permit yang
disetujui termasuk juga fax untuk booking hotel selama seminggu.)
Petugas2 : Tapi pak,kalau mau kesana bapak harus punya tiket pulang-perginya,takutnya
nanti ada pemerikasaan dari imigrasi di sini (sambil menunjukkan letak
ruangan dan loket imigrasi),takutnya nanti bermasalah

Petugas2 :Kalo mau lolos bapak harus membayar uang tunjuk (kalo ga salah)agar bisa
berangkat ke singapura. Kalo ga percaya silahkan langsung bertanya kepada
petugas imigrasinya sendiri

(langsung bergegas ke ruangan imigrasi)
Saya :siang Pak,kalo dengan kondisi bla bla bla bla itu gimana pak..?
Petugas Imigrasi:wah mas, kalo dari kita sih asal semua documennya komplit ga ada
masalah kok tenang aja..

(balik lagi ke counter lion air)
saya : gimana mas,kok orang imigrasi bilang ga ada masalah kok?
petugas2 : barusan saya tanya atasan saya di singapura,dan dia bilang ga bisa kasih
pass buat saya untuk berangkat dengan kondisi one way tiket seperti bapak.
saya : loh,tadi katanya masalah sama imigrasi indonesia,sekarang kok beda?
Petugas2 : Takutnya nanti bapak dideportasi,itulah gunanya tiket PP (pulang pergi)
apalagi kan bapak kan ga ada bukti bekerja disana.
saya : OH BAPAK TIDAK PERCAYA DENGAN OMONGAN SAYA,JADI SAYA HARUS BELI TIKET SATU
LAGI YANG TIDAK BAKAL KEPAKE GITU? KALO SAYA TIDAK MAU BELI GIMANA?HAH
saya : saya itu udah ada sponsor Pak disana,mana mungkin dideportasi?.
Petugas2 : Maaf saya tetap tidak bisa bantu bapak,selama menggunakan one way ticket.
saya : EMANG BEGINI NIH LION AIR PERLAKUANNYA TERHADAP KONSUMEN..GA JELAS!!
tapi kenapa ya saya punya teman dengan kondisi yang sama persis tapi tetap
bisa berangkat..oh ya dia naiknya sih SINGAPORE AIRLINES...!
Petugas2 :..................................
saya : ok,gini deh..saya tantang Bapak,dengan kondisi apapun yang terjadi.Kalau
sampai harus dideportasi..saya tidak akan menuntut siapapun termasuk
Lion dan saya akan menanggung semua resikonya sendiri......Bagaimana PAk?
Petugas2 :..................................
Petugas2 :Bapak setuju bikin surat pernyataan yang isinya seperti itu
saya :Silahkan,jangan sampai saya harus ketinggalan pesawat!!!!






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27 February 2008

The Bigest Google Adsense Money Maker


Posted In: Adsense Success Story , Joel Comm , Shawn Hogan , Shoe Money , Weblog Inch . By hans

The following is a list of the Internet’s eight biggest Google AdSense Money Makers publishers as reported by John Chow. It is interesting to see the big winners. Hopefully you'll all get the benefits from this success story and you'll be the next....|

1: Markus Frind: PlentyOfFish.com - $300,000 per month, the biggest free dating site on the Internet. It has only two employees, as the post said, “Doubts about Makus’s Google earnings were silenced when he posted this $900,000 check from Google. According to Markus’s blog entry, the check represented two months of AdSense earnings.”

2: Kevin Rose: Digg.com - $250,000 per month (guess), one of the biggest news sites on the Net, with over 400,000 members and over 200 million page views per month.


3: Jeremy Shoemaker - $140,000 per month, a search engine marketer who knows how to take advantage of both Google AdSense and AdWords and uses hundreds of sites and thousands of domains, unlike all the others, who have one site.

4: Jason Calacanis: Weblogs, Inc. - $120,000 per month (before AOL) as the post said, “Now that AOL controls Weblogs, you can bet it is making a lot more than a measly $120,000 a month.” His work was covered in Business Blogs: a Practical guide, along with two netwrok blogs, The Office Weblog and The Tablet PC Weblog by Marc Orchant.

5: David Miles Jr. & Kato Leonard - $100,000 per month, gives away designs that people can use on MySpace. Not a bad idea.

6: Tim Carter: AskTheBuilder.com - $30,000 per month, “catering to an avid following of fellow builders on the site.”

7: Joel Comm - $24,000 per month, get rich quick guru who wrote the best selling e-book, What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense.

8: Shawn Hogan – DigitalPoint.com $10,000 per month using a unique revenue sharing model that was not detailed on the post.



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26 February 2008

Tentang Backlink


Tentang Backlink


Backlink, backlink, dan backlink. Kalau ngobrol masalah SEO, pasti kata tersebut ambil bagian.


Banyakin backlink kalau mau dapet ranking bagus di search engine!



Submit ke social bookmark untuk dapet backlink!



Namun sebenarnya, makhluk apa sih backlink itu? Sejenis undur-undur-kah? Atau masih ada hubungannya dengan spesies monyet biru? Bagi yang sudah mengenal jauh tentang SEO tentu akan manggut-manggut saja, tapi bagi newbie, mendengar kata backlink mungkin akan sama membingungkannya dengan pada saat mereka mendengar nama domain “llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.com“. Nah supaya gak bingung lagi, mari kita intip bersama sosok sebenarnya dari backlink :)




Apa Itu Backlink?


Bahasa sederhananya, backlink atau tautan balik adalah link atau tautan yang didapat oleh situs kita dari situs lain. Misalnya, situs A memberikan link ke situs B, ini berarti situs B baru saja mendapat backlink dari situs A. Berarti pula, situs B saat ini memiliki 1 buah backlink. Tidak susah kan konsepnya?


Untuk bahasan teknisnya, silahkan baca sendiri di Wikipedia. Saya sih malas, toh gak keluar juga di ujian semester, hehehe.


Macam Backlink


Dari arusnya, backlink dapat dibedakan menjadi 3 bagian:



  1. One-Way Backlink

    Free Image Hosting At ImageCows.Net


  2. Two-Way Backlink

    Free Image Hosting At ImageCows.Net


  3. Three-Way Backlink

    Free Image Hosting At ImageCows.Net



Yang pasti menjadi pertanyaan, mana di antara ketiganya yang paling baik? Jawabannya tergantung dari dua skenario berikut ini:



  • Apabila situs yang memberikan backlink sudah terkenal dan memiliki posisi bagus di mesin pencari, maka backlink yang baik adalah tipe One-Way.

  • Apabila situs yang memberikan backlink belum terkenal dan belum memiliki posisi bagus di mesin pencari (atau termasuk dalam dummy blog), maka backlink yang baik adalah tipe Three-Way.


Natural Backlink


Kondisi Natural Backlink atau backlink alami terpenuhi apabila backlink disisipkan dalam konten atau artikel dan dalam bentuk kalimat sehingga terkesan natural. Kebanyakan pemula mengira bahwa untuk mendapat backlink cukup dengan menyertakan link ke situs yang bersangkutan di bagian sidebar, padahal ini tidak tepat dan kurang optimal hasilnya. Selain itu, rawan dianggap sebagai paid link.


Text vs Banner


Satu lagi yang perlu diperhatikan, yang dihitung sebagai backlink oleh mesin pencari adalah link yang berupa teks (atau text link), bukan link yang ada dalam bentuk banner (banner link). Silahkan baca artikel saya yang terdahulu untuk lebih jelasnya.


PageRank vs SERP


Apa sebenarnya tujuan dari mengumpulkan backlink? Menaikkan PageRank? Atau mendapatkan posisi yang baik di mesin pencari? Kedua jawaban tersebut memang benar, namun pada prakteknya ada sedikit perbedaan implementasi.


Untuk menaikkan PageRank, backlink yang kita miliki harus:



  • Berasal dari situs dengan topik sejenis (baca artikel “Tragedi PageRank Update” sebagai tambahan informasi).

  • Berasal dari situs yang PageRank-nya lebih tinggi. Namun tidak ada salahnya mengumpulkan backlink dari situs ber-PR berapapun karena tetap akan diperhitungkan dalam penilaian PageRank.


Sedangkan apabila tujuan kita adalah untuk menaikkan ranking di search engine, maka:



  • Backlink dapat dikumpulkan dari berbagai situs. Tapi tetap saja, utamakan backlink dari situs bertopik sejenis.

  • Backlink usahakan berupa Natural Backlink.

  • Backlink harus menggunakan variasi keyword yang dibidik pada anchor text. Usahakan pula untuk melakukan deep linking atau link ke halaman-halaman lain pada situs yang bersangkutan.


Sumber Backlink


Pokok bahasan terakhir, darimana saja kita bisa mengumpulkan backlink? Atau, bagaimana caranya mendapatkan backlink sebanyak-banyaknya?



Sebetulnya masih banyak lagi, jadi silahkan berkreasi sendiri saja. Yang jelas, HINDARI menggunakan tool-tool yang mengklaim bisa menghasilkan ribuan backlink bagi situs Anda dalam hitungan jam atau hari. Selain tidak efektif, juga 99% berpotensi dianggap spam oleh mesin pencari.




Semoga bermanfaat dan tidak bingung lagi dengan backlink :)



Artikel ini ditulis oleh Cosa Aranda dan pertama kali dipublikasikan pada tanggal 25 February 2008. Artikel bebas untuk didistribusikan ulang untuk keperluan non-komersil selama mencantumkan nama penulis dan sumber artikel serta tidak merubah separuh atau seluruh bagian dari isi.

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18 February 2008

Reaching The Top of Page One In Google In As Little As One Week


When you have the right information, climbing to the top of Google in a very short period of time is entirely within your reach. I am living proof. Two weeks ago, I launched my new website, and now I have multiple listings on page one of the Google search results.

An Empirical Truth

Scientists make their way in the world relying upon empirical truths. For those who are unaware, an empirical truth can be defined as, "verifiable or provable by means of repeatable observation or experiment."


In essence, if you can observe it once, then it is interesting. But, when you can repeat the experiment and achieve the same observations multiple times, then you have evidence of an empirical truth.

>From my own observations, what I am about to tell you is an empirical truth, because I have observed it happen again and again.

The Challenge In Exposing The Truth

Anytime someone writes about how to influence placement in the search engines, the writer faces a difficult choice.

In order to light the path of those who come after the writer, the writer must provide some kind of proof as to how the methods work and what kinds of results the writer was able to achieve using the methods.

Introducing The Quandary

In order to believe my story, many people want to see my keywords so they can personally verify my story by reviewing the Google search results. Although you may not be competing directly with my website and the keywords on which I rank, one can almost guarantee that my competitors may stumble over my tutorial at some point in the future.

In other words, if I told you that I was trying to rank for the keyword "cock-a-doodle-doo", then you (the reader) could validate my results. At the same time, my competitor might discover this article and decide to use my methods and my keywords to outrank my own website in the search engines.

This actually happened to one of my mentors. In a public discussion of these same methods, he had given a bone to the readers of the forum where he was participating in a discussion. Within eight weeks, two of his top competitors held the top two spots for his keyword phrase, and after a five-year run at number one in Google, he suddenly found himself sitting in the number three spot.

So, the question is how I tell my story in a way that will help you to also see the light, without giving away the light bulb...

Have A Little Faith In Those Who Are Looking Out For You

Some of you may choose to have faith in the story that I tell. Others will choose to deny my methods, on the principle that they cannot see my results for themselves.

All I ask is that you have a little faith in my story. Then run your own test. Your test will not require a major investment, but when you see your website climbing from nowhere to somewhere in the Google results, you will be glad that you took my story on a little bit of faith.

Some Background

One of my mentors, Bill Platt, has been telling me about these methods for years. But to be honest, the picture just was not clear in my brain, for longer than I would care to admit.

Now and again, I would read something by one of the Internet gurus, and they would tell that they used these methods themselves. When the really rich people on the Internet tell you something about how to perform well on the Internet, it has always been my position that you should listen. I listened; well, I mostly listened anyway.

I hooked up with Bill shortly after having been told the importance of article marketing. Bill seemed to have the answers concerning the article-marketing model, having been in the business himself for a number of years, through his website (http://www.thephantomwriters.com).

Bill always told me that writing articles was about generating traffic and sales from the placement of my articles in ezines. He had also told me that if I played the game right, I could even benefit the rankings of my website in the search engines.

I started using Bill's article distribution service to put my articles into circulation.

Bill had also advised that his clients, who get the greatest benefit from article marketing, use multiple systems to distribute their articles. He advised that Willie Crawford (http://www.gitofftheporch.com) was one of the Internet guru's who used more than one distribution service to put his articles into the wild.

Bill said that using more than one service was a good thing, because most article distribution services have their own unique reach, enabling the writer to get published in more ezines and on more websites. He emphasized that the goal should be to get as many people to your website as possible, using your articles as a method for introducing the reader to your website.

Beware Of Your Own Smartness

After using Bill's article distribution services for a few months, I had the privilege of reading John Reese's Traffic Secrets (http://www.trafficsecrets.com). John offered many useful tips for a successful online business, but one piece of advice he offered I implemented immediately.

John emphasized the importance of tracking our results. He said that in order to see what is successful, we must have a method in place to enable us to track where our traffic came from. Suddenly, I realized that although I knew that my website had been driving a lot of traffic, I had really no idea where that traffic was coming from or its cause.

Let me clarify that a bit. I knew that most of my traffic was coming from the large numbers of articles that I had distributed through Bill's service and the service of one of his competitors (http://www.isnare.com). But, I did not know which articles were generating the bulk of my traffic.

So, I followed John's advice and bought a software package designed to help me track my results (http://www.dynatracker.com). Then, I told Bill that from that day forward, we would need to use tracking URL's with all of the articles I distributed through his service.

Bill agreed that tracking was important, but he suggested that there are better ways to track results than the one I was proposing. I listened to John, but I did not fully listen to Bill's advice. Looking back, I kick myself daily for not listening to Bill in that one moment.

Tracking Your Article Results

Bill had always told me that using the Dyna Tracker was a good product for tracking my results, but it had an inherent problem. That problem is that I would be passing the search engine Link Value from my articles to my tracking software and not to the individual pages of my website.

If only I would have listened... I ran a full-year worth of articles with the Dyna Tracker links in my resource boxes. While Bill was telling me to dump the Dyna Tracker links, I was busy praising the value of the data I collected from the software.

One Test Blew My Mind

On one of my regular phone calls with Bill, I told him that I was launching a new website to complement what I was already doing. I asked Bill if he had any recommendations that he would give me on the new site.

Bill told me that I would not like his answer, but if I wanted to hear it, he would tell me.

I have to be honest, a knot formed in the pit of my stomach as I braced for his comments.

He told me that I should get back to basics. He told me that I already knew from experience that articles would help me to drive traffic to my website. I did know that. Bill recommended that I do two articles per week for twelve weeks. I have done that before, so I knew that I could get good results from that advice. He told me to use more than one article distribution service to put those articles in the wild. I followed that advice as well.

Then Bill got to the stomach punch. Bill told me to throw away my Dyna Tracker and provide direct URL links to my website. He also told me to keyword some of those links to my website, for the purpose of influencing my search placement for those keywords.

He told me to test the idea and to measure my results in just a few weeks. He told me if the methodology did not work for me, then I could start using my Dyna Tracker again.

He also suggested that I should use his Link Building system to develop 100 inbound links to my website, targeting the keywords that I felt would be important to my business. (http://www.linksandtraffic.com) I figured it was worth a try. Bill had never led me astray before, and I did not expect he was doing so then.

The Results

Within just a few weeks, I was getting a good amount of traffic to my new website. Strangely, I found that I was getting far more traffic from the search engines than I ever had before, yet the website was almost brand new! That just flew in the face of that sandbox theory we all hear about.

So, I started testing the keywords that Bill targeted in his linking job on my behalf. Wow. I found my brand new website sitting in the #12 spot in the Google search results on a two-word keyword that is actually pretty competitive. I also found the keywords we targeted in the campaign sitting in the #1, #1, and the #3 spot in the Google search results. I also found many page one results in the Yahoo search results as well.

Cock-a-doodle-doo! The light bulb went on, finally.

Then two weeks ago, I started another new campaign for my newest website. Within 24 hours of completing that website, I had distributed my first article promoting the website. Within 8 days of releasing that site to the public, I also had page one and page two listings for a wide range of keywords that I have so far targeted for my new website.

When In Rome, Do As The Romans Do

I mentioned three of my favorite teachers in this article: Bill Platt, Willy Crawford, and John Reese. I felt all three needed a mention, because all three have taught me things that have helped me to make money online. If you would like to learn from their expertise yourself, just Google their names.

The most important thing that I have learned since starting my website is that if I want to get rich online, I need to listen to those who are already making money online.

My hope is that you will listen to them too, so you can join us at the top.





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