Minding Your Business-Online Classified Ads - The Benefits

Presented on US Sports Net by Yahoo Small Business!

By: Patrick Lau

The days of spending hours flipping pages of telephone directories and business card folders are now the thing of the past. Ever since the creation of the internet, marketers are now turning to this method to advertise their products and services. People nowadays are looking for quick and safe means of accessing accurate and up-to-date information to keep pace with a constantly evolving society. Almost everyone are now turning to the internet for assistance in their quest for knowledge. Internet is not only the best means of accessing up-to-date information, it is also a place which allow people around the globe to interact with each other in a safe and exciting environment, thus bringing people all over the globe together. Register Your Domain for $9.95 with Yahoo Classified Ads, one of the most over-looked form of advertising, is an effective means of expressing ideas and exchanging information. It offer users the opportunity to post their ads on a webpage or to access the ads posted by others thus displaying all the information on the webpages in a fraction of a second. Classified Ads websites provide vast information, accurate and well-structured in various categories:auto classified, real estate classified, pet classified, service classified, job classified, event classified and many more which are easy to access. You can find various sites which provide posting of classified ads on the net. Some are free and some do charge a nominal fee for posting your ad. Some provide additional features to your posted ads and some also provide a storefront to enable you to categorize your products or services on the site. Most sites provide a easy to list method of posting your product or service. Most of the time, you will be entitle to submit a title of your ad, a description, photo which the number of photos allow varies from each site and hyperlinks. Once your ad is up on the classified ads site, the visibility of the ad will depend on the traffic or number of visitors on the site. These online service provider target consumers who has interest to gain more knowledge and to purchase a particular product or service over the internet. Classified Ads act as the easiest and simplest option to promote and publicize almost any product or service globally be it from amateurs or professional. Even important events or announcement held at any location can be promoted as well as propagate awareness via classified ads. This simple and effective procedure to gain publicity helps individual and companies to market their product at a much larger base. Whether you wish to find new happenings in your local area or to promote your business or service or product, to inform other people about the latest events, classified ads website are the best means to do it. Irregardless of you buying, selling, renting or exchanging, classified ads are perfect for you. If you are interested in buying a car, a home audio system, powerboat, a pet, looking for a house cleaner or even a business associates, classified ads website offer you the opportunity to choose among hundreds, maybe thousand of posting! Or you wish to sell your house, offer carpool, dispose off your unwanted stock or provide professional services, classified ads website can provide good exposure to your announcement. Classified ads website are a valuable source of information. It not only help in promoting your product or service and update the clients but will also generate sales for you. So why wait! Start looking for a reliable and professional classified ad website and you are on your way to achieve greater height for your goal!

Minding Your Business-Actualizing Your Wise Business Mind

Presented on US Sports Net By Yahoo Small Business!

By: Pam Britton

In order to actualize anything we need to be fully present. In business, especially, we must remove all blinders. We must pay attention to all thoughts we have about the potential opportunity in front of us, not just the positives. MONEY MAKING POTENTIAL IS GOOD BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF USING YOUR RATIONAL MIND! Too many times we get so driven by the "money-making potential" that we set aside our rational minds, sweeping under the rug anything that doesn't feel quite right. If you want to not get burned you must stay grounded and centered and trust your inner wise mind. Website Builder - Easily create a beautiful, mobile friendly website for as little as $7/mo! I now have under my business-belt of knowledge, some first-hand experience with a relatively new opportunity (which shall stay un-named) and wanted to share my process with you-- GREED IS THE CULPRIT--IT IS HUMAN, WE ALL POSSESS IT SO WATCH OUT FOR IT!! To put it bluntly, what got me burned this time was greed. That's right-- pure, unadulterated greed! It is not something I am proud of but it is a human quality we all have.* Smart entrepreneurs need be aware of their own greed when considering investing time and money into any new business. *Greed is a spirit that you have the choice to adopt or not. We do not have greed until we make the decision to be greedy The wise business person activates and turns the volume way up on the discriminating mind's antennae. With so many online opportunities it is easy to get mislead or scammed. I'm not saying we should look for the scam potential in every opportunity we meet. I'm just saying we need to turn on our intuitive powers after we've completed the other fact-finding due diligence efforts. PAY ATTENTION TO THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE THAT JUST DON'T FIT Once we've filtered out those parts that do not seem quite right we should look at those areas which do not fit with the rest of the picture. It is in those puzzle pieces that don't quite "fit in" that we may find the key to choosing or NOT choosing a legitimate, potentially profitable business opportunity. In my case, I have always given greatest weight to the opinions of business partners who I trust, who have steered me down paths that have been quite profitable. However, even those we trust and who we know are not scam artists are capable of walking down the wrong path by their own greed factors. This is what I believe happened to me with my recent business loss. EVEN TRUSTED BUSINESS PARTNERS ARE CAPABLE OF THE GREED FACTOR--THEY'RE ONLY HUMAN, JUST LIKE YOU! My trusted business partner said to me as he referred me to this particular opportunity, that it had taken him a considerable amount of time to make up his mind before he decided to get started. He said what changed his mind was that others who had begun placing their advertising dollars into the opportunity were already in profit mode. He said they were doing well financially and had first-hand knowledge of these people. He went on to say that he trusted these entrepreneurs and knew their characters, so decided to give it a go. However, he did agree with me that the opportunity sounded "too good to be true"--both of us used to tell one another that "if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is!" What is noteworthy here is that I completely ignored my internal voice that was telling me not to take part in this business model as it definitely sounded too good to be true. My rational mind knew that it was too good to be true, yet I forged ahead anyway. I began engaging in "wishful thinking" that just this one time it was not too good to be true. In other words, I deluded myself. I placed a false protective shield around my efforts based not on reality, but on hope for a pie-in-the sky positive outcome, just in this one case--my case! Not very wise, indeed! HOW TO ACTUALIZE YOUR WISE BUSINESS MIND-- 1. The wise mind values the internal voice which intuits potential danger ahead. 2. The wise business mind does not act on "too good to be true" sounding business opportunities. 3. In short, to actualize your wise business mind pay close attention to your gut feeling and do not sweep it under the rug. Examine it very closely. 4. Do not make any sudden or abrupt business decisions. 5. Do not hesitate to stay away from an opportunity if your wise mind cautions you against it. 6. Know that everyone, even your trusted business partners with whom you may have had many positive, profitable experiences, are only human and capable of greed, just like you. 7. We are all human and capable of greed and delusion. The wise entrepreneur is aware of her/his own humanness and acts to reduce it! As always, going on beyond, I wish you well in your future business adventures! Pam :) Pam Britton is an entrepreneur, certified clinical hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner who combines her passion for service with an entrepreneurial mindset. Pam offers phone coaching for those who wish to be positioned on the forefront of the latest trends in positive psychology. Learn more at www.pambritton.com

Minding Your Business-How To Build Your Opt-In List

Presented On US Sports Net By Yahoo Small Business!

By: Steve Renner

Before revealing the tricks of the trades, there are a few myths and fallacies that need to be cleared up. These common marketing misconceptions could be obstacle to you profiting from your online business. Business Mail - Get 1000 GB of Free Space w/ Yahoo Business Mail!  Email marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing methods today because virtually everyone uses email. When you are filling out various forms for processing different transactions online your email address is always required. A person without an email address is like a person without an online home, which is inexcusable for someone in this generation. Direct Email marketing (Spam) campaigns can offend a lot of people. The secret way around this problem is through permission-based marketing or Opt-In. The Real Deal with Building an Opt-In List Here's how you can benefit from the power of email marketing campaigns - building an Opt-In list. Building an good Opt-In list is not a cake walk for everyone, particularly for the uninformed. Here is a rundown of tips on how you can succeed with Opt-In Email Marketing. 1. Strategic Data Collection Capture the email address from your site visitors. This will help you to build your business and make sales skyrocket. There are several tactics you can use to make people voluntarily provide you with their personal information. This will make it easier to get higher conversions. Ask only for the Opt-In, with their first name and email addresses. 2. Good Implementation The old saying holds true - 'action speaks louder than words'. This easily translates to the difficulty people have when they go to executetheir email marketing efforts. There are various methods, often low-cost, around to help you build your Opt-In database. Tracking your email marketing results is important. You can use special software to handle this aspect of your marketing. This will help you to keep track of where your Opt-Ins are coming from. The following are the most widely used methods to leverage your Opt-In campaign without overspending: 1. Use a Squeeze Page. This is an excellent tool for data collection and can providing you with fresh leads. Offer a Bribe, or Free Offer in exchange for their email address. Use forms that collect your visitor's name and email address. 2. You can use of print ads, brochures, TV, radio and direct mail. These are the more traditional ways of marketing that still work to generate traffic to your site. You may want to ask for signups for email services. Make your website more visible through these media. Offering a free newsletters and or a free product or service can work to get the email from your visitors. 3. Maximize your sales force. An Affiliate Program can help you to benefit more from your email marketing campaign. Affiliates people with proper training on how to attract visitors can help you to get more Opt-In subscribers. 4. Don't make your point of sale confusing. Forms for signup located at the right spot on your Squeeze Page and other high-traffic pages can be very excellent ways for your business to collect email addresses. Notification of upcoming sales or some free bonus can be enough to coax them to supply you with the information you need. 5. Conferences or trade shows can work, too. Using Offline techniques can work well and should be used in addition to Online Methods. Giveaway offers or entries in a contest are a great incentive for people to volunteer their contact details. These tactics should be applied with caution and you should focus on earning the trust of your Opt-In list instead of simply collecting data for your own benefit. Always make sure that the forms and other methods that you use will not be too difficult to use for the subscriber. You don't want people to not be annoyed during the sign up process. Armed with this information, you can't go wrong building your opt-in list! Steve Renner, Author, Marketing Expert and Marketing Director for The Affiliate Community

Minding Your Business-Email Marketing in 2018 and Beyond

Presented on US Sports Net By Yahoo Small Business!

By: Rimma Paulsen

Having preached about how email marketing is far from dead and taking a look at past mistakes in your campaign, it is time to take a long overdue look at the future. There have been massive strides made in the email marketing space in recent years but there is still plenty of room for improvement. As the lead support rep in North America, I am the first line of defence when a client comes in with a feature request, so I’ve heard it all. While there are some outlandish requests, like the ability to stop contacts from manually placing emails into the spam folder, there have been a number of ideas brought up that really struck a chord with me. Here, I will take the time to go over a few of these concepts and see how they could impact the email game going forward. Auto-segmentation and Personalization Business Mail - Get 1000 GB of Free Space w/ Yahoo Business Mail! You may be saying to yourself, "wait a second, both of these are doable right now! What’s up?" And that is true, but no to the extent email marketers want or need. Yes, you can parse lists according to a number of different variables and even customize email content based on pre-set values, but it still largely has to be done manually. What I’ve found to be a common request is the desire to do more in a fraction of the time. People want to import their list and then have the work done for them. While this may seem like the fantasy of a lazy salesperson, it actually isn’t that far from being a reality. With advances in AI happening so rapidly it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to create a thinking and growing email platform that can cut your workload in half. Imagine automatically seeing your contacts organised according to age group, gender or location and then a template is automatically brought up based on those segments? It would be quite the convenience wouldn’t it? The value of a flat out email list just isn’t there anymore; it is about all of the additional data you can collect about that list. Knowledge is power, and the more you know about a potential client the more versatility you grant yourself. With a system that could automatically sort through the information you input, create segments and populate templates with the best variables for that given segment a sales rep could get an exponential amount of work done in comparison to have to sift through everything manually. An Interactive Age – Branching Campaigns Much like the previous section, branching campaigns are not a novel concept, though they aren’t the norm either. But this idea expands on that even further. Take, for instance, a restaurant sending newsletters. Today you can have a static image of your menu, maybe an animated banner and links to your website. Wouldn’t it be better to have the entire interactive menu from the site proper embedded in the actual email chain? Instant gratification has become a staple of the Internet, so why not let your customers interact with your site from the get go? The email routine today goes a little like this: Email is received Open the email Client is interested Client clicks link and is taken to the website They then have to sign-in and search for whatever it was that interested them about the email. Along the way they lose interest because of the back and forth You can craft the perfect copy but the disconnect between the email and the actual purchasing process can lead to lost sales. If the interface of your email had the same level of interaction as your site you could essentially cut out the middleman and have them make purchases from directly within the message. Which then leads us to the concept of branching campaigns. Based on the level of interaction a client shows you can trigger different phases of the campaign. If someone is showing a lot of interest the platform would automatically detect this and skip ahead a few follow-ups to take a more direct approach. If a prospect seems a little more hesitant they would be sent down a path with a bit more nurturing. It all boils down to advancements in AI and the ability to implement these ideas into an email without setting off every spam filter on the Internet, but it would be nice! One-Click Purchases Building off of the interactive email concept, the ability to make a payment with a single click, through a fingerprint or retinal scan would be a huge boon to sales teams. This would mainly be for the mobile markets but the ability to make the sale with a single button press would benefit potential clients and companies alike. As mentioned above, there is a current disconnect between the email and the purchasing process. External links are necessary, which leads to unnecessary time being spent and potential frustration building. We live in a world of impulse buyers, and adding this tool may seem like taking advantage of the times, but isn’t that what we’re here for? If we aren’t going to capitalize on trends we may as well be in another industry all together. Giving people the option to buy your product or service with the touch of a button will save both party’s time and energy. As mentioned previously, all of these advancements rely on an expansion of the email platform in general as well as rapid AI development in the future. That being said, it isn’t too hard to imagine these actually coming to fruition in the near future. Nothing will ever beat a hand written letter to a potential client, but to be able to create that same feel in a fraction of the time is an immeasurable asset that shouldn’t be ignored.

Hope you enjoyed this article.If you want to put your email outreach on autopilot while keeping it personal then don't hesitate to contact Reply.io for more information. Here's the link - https://reply.io/

Minding Your Business-3 Fundamental Aspects of Internet Marketing that Should Never Be Ignored

Presented on US Sports Net By Yahoo Small Business!

Effectively promoting and marketing a product, service, website, or brand online can be quite the challenge in today’s competitive environment, requiring a multi-faceted approach and a significant investment of at least time and effort.For companies that are serious about getting their brand name out there on the World Wide Web, paying an experienced team of experts to do all the hard work seems to make the most sense from an investing standpoint. Still, even with an extensive advertising budget, simply deciding what to invest in first can seem like a daunting task when you’re just starting a campaign from scratch. Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting - Build a great web site with our easy-to-use tools  To provide a broad understanding of the main components of internet marketing, we’ve listed the following three promotion types that are essential in every marketing campaign. Search Engine Optimization Any website that aims to receive a large number of visitors on a daily basis should work to increase organic traffic through SEO. Organic traffic comes from visitors that stumble upon your site naturally while searching for a topic or keyword in a search engine like Google. By writing and posting content that targets popular searches or answers popular queries, you’ll be able to attract targeted traffic and, most importantly, if you can obtain #1 rankings, your site will be showing up at the top of Google whenever someone searches for a specific term or phrase, which is of course is a reputation booster. 2. Social Networking and Social Media Every internet marketing campaign should involve the creation and ongoing maintenance of multiple social networking accounts. Social media marketing can be defined as the practice of posting interesting and entertaining media to your social networking accounts so that it can be seen and shared by all of your followers, who then share it with their friends, creating the commonly mentioned "viral traffic" effect. You should devote a significant portion of your time to keeping social accounts updated and posting the best new content you can find or create. 3. PPC and Other Advertising Methods If you’ve ever browsed the internet for more than a minute, you’ve probably seen a text or banner ad before. They’re ubiquitous online, with advertising networks like Google Adwords making it easy for anyone to launch a campaign and have their ads posted on relevant sites in their niche the same day. For starters, you should be learning how to use Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) services to attract targeted visitors. A PPC advertising scheme only requires you to pay a set amount every time a web surfer clicks on one of your ads and is brought to the landing page on your site. Bringing it All Together After you attract a decent amount of traffic from the SEO and social media efforts, and have started getting conversions with the PPC, you can then calculate, on average, how much you’re having to spend on PPC before seeing a desired action (i.e. – a sales or newsletter sign-up) and from there you’ll be able to work out a rough estimate of how much it will cost you per conversion using PPC investments alone. 10 years of experience in seo field, i'm a Freelance SEO and a Freelance Wordpress

Yahoo Small Business-Professional Email Address Guidelines

Professional Email Address Guidelines

BY | SMALL BUSINESS

An electronic calling card of sorts, your email address makes a subtle, but lasting impression upon would-be clients and peers. If you’re doing business online and trading information via email, your choice of an address can help others perceive you as a responsible entity with whom they can reliably do business. No, SlickDaddy99@GenericHostingService.com simply isn’t going to cut it.

With that in mind, adhering to the following professional email address guidelines will get you a lot more traction in this regard.

Business Mail - Get 1000 GB of Free Space w/ Yahoo Business Mail!

Using Your Own Domain Is Crucial

Employing a generic email domain suffix is one of the fastest ways to say, “I’m running a fly-by-night operation on the cheap.” While there was a time when a custom domain was a “nice-to-have,” it is now a “must.” Wholly indicative of your professionalism, experience and dedication, you simply have to have a branded mail address in today’s business environment.

Beyond that though, spam filters tend to weed out nonspecific domain names. This can prevent your messages from reaching those with whom you need to conduct business. What’s more, because your email address appears everywhere you send a message, it’s one of the least expensive ways to generate marketing impressions.

Nicknames Are Tacky—Avoid Them

If you had to guess, what would you say SlickDaddy99’s interests are? Either nobody knows, or nobody wants to know. And that’s bad for business.

Why leave your reputation open to interpretation? Always go with your name. This lets your colleagues know the message is from you right away.

Within that though, the exact format you choose will be predicated by a number of factors. If your organization is large, you’ll likely need to include full first and last names to differentiate between the five different Seans you employ or the three Janes you have on staff. This is also a good way to make a smaller organization look larger.

Use Special Addresses for Various Functions

Addresses such as CustomerService@MyCompany.com, Information@MyCompany.Com and Sales@MyCompany.com, can be used to route messages to specific areas of the business, while maintaining the anonymity of key people—until they want to disclose their direct addresses.

In addition to being a useful security measure, this gives you the capability of having a single message sent to several people at once in any given department. Sales messages can go to your sales managers, Customer Service messages can go to your customer service managers as well as you so you can keep an eye on things and so on.

Keeping these professional email address guidelines in mind when you’re establishing your communications protocols will improve the image of your business and help it run more efficiently. With domains more affordable than ever and scams proliferating at an ever-increasing rate, using your own domain name is no longer an option, it’s standard operating procedure.

If you don’t have a profession email set up, visit Yahoo Small Business to get yours today! You can now get a free professional email account, and free one page website, when you register a domain name. So there’s no longer any reason to use a generic address for your small business.

Minding Your Business-How to register your domain

Presented on US Sports Net By Yahoo Small Business!

By: Nisha Garg

When you launch a new website you must register a unique domain name with an authorized registrar. When the internet was first starting, all domain names and IP addresses were registered through one organization, Internic. Eventually Network Solutions took over the role as "keeper" of the internet domain names. Today, there are hundreds of websites where you can register your domain name but Network Solutions still maintains the main database of domain names. Some websites charge as little as $2.95 per year for your domain name while others charge as much as $35 per year for the exact same service. Some even offer one year free if you register your domain name with them and host your website on their servers. Why pay $35 when you can register your domain name for much less at another website? So why does Network Solutions charge $35 a year if they are the keeper of the database and their resellers charge a fraction or even nothing? Who knows and who cares! Register your domain with one of the cheaper providers and you'll be fine. A word caution - be care that you choose to host your website. Getting a free year of your domain name isn't worth it if your webhost is unreliable and your website is down more than it's up. Register Your Domain for $9.95 with Yahoo You pay for your domain name on a yearly basis. It's a separate charge from your webhosting bill. When you register your domain name choose the autorenewal option if it's available. This way your domain name will not expire if you forget to renew it. If your domain name expires, it's free for anyone else to register so you need to stay on top of when it's expiring. Also registering your domain name for a 3 to 5 year term will often save you money. For example, godaddy.com charges $8.95 a year for your domain name but only $7.25 a year if you register for a 5 year term. When you register your domain you can create different contact names. The three contacts are Administrator, Technical and Billing. Most of the time the same person is all 3 contacts. If you web designer registers your domain name for you, make sure you are designated as the Administrative contact. This gives you control over the domain name and you must be notified if someone is trying to make changes to your record. If you aren't one of the contacts then someone can transfer ownership of the domain name without your permission. To see a record of your domain name, go to www.networksolutions.com and use their WHOIS utility which is located in the bottom left corner of their home page. Simply enter your domain name and click Search. You'll see the complete record of your domain name, where it's registered and where your website is hosted. For a complete video of how to use WHOIS, visit www.valiss.com/video/whois/whois.html. When you register your domain name you'll have to the option of making it a private registration. I highly recommend paying the additional fee to make your information private. If you leave your registration public anyone can look up your domain information which includes your home or business address and your email address. Many spammers scan public domain registration records to find valid email addresses to spam. I always use a yahoo or hotmail email account when registering my domains. This way if spammers to find my email address, I can just get a new "throwaway" email address and I won't receive spam at my primary email address. Always make sure your domain record remains locked. Locking your domain name is a feature implemented a few years ago. When you want to transfer your domain name to a different registrar you must unlock it. Once it's unlocked the new registrar can "pull" your domain name from your current registrar. Once the transfer is complete, the domain name will be locked to prevent anyone else from "pulling" your domain away from you

Minding Your Business-Key Marketing People in a Digital World

Presented On US Sports Net By Yahoo Small Business!

By: Sallie Leblanc Fifteen years ago, when a business decided to invest money in advertising, typically this meant buying ad space in a newspaper or magazine, creating print mail ads, or buying air time on the t.v. or radio. But that was then, and this is now. Unless you have been living under a rock, most of us realize that advertising has moved from traditional, to the completely fast-paced digital world of social media. The internet has been a game changer. So what are the rules to this new world of digital advertising world, and how can business stay competitive? It can all be very overwhelming, especially if you are just starting a new business, or you are lacking the man power or time to fully invest in digital marketing. Digital marketing, unlike traditional marketing, does have one huge flaw unlike traditional advertising. Digital Marketing is extremely time consuming! And to really do it right, you cannot do it on your own. But before panic ensues, I am going to try to break it down into a few easy steps, in hopes that I can somehow relieve your anxiety. Think of it as "Social Media Marketing Help 101". There are a few key people who can manage your business in this digital world, and make your business a powerful player on the internet and in the social media world. These are not ALL the people who work in social media, rather the four key players who can launch your business. Get accurate business listings across top directories with Localworks from Yahoo #1) The WEBSITE company Yes, it is obvious, but you must have a website to do business today. Businesses without websites might as well not even be open. Think back to the days of yellow pages. If your business was not listed in the yellow pages fifteen years ago, there was a good chance Mrs. Jones was not going to find your air conditioning service when her A/C unit blew out in the 100 degree summer. Well it is the same thing with the internet. No website= no business. You cannot have one without the other. But many of you are taking the cheap route and hiring just about anyone to create a website. Yes, we know who you are! You are the one who hired your college kid's friend to throw up a website, and then this same kid disappeared and left you high and dry with a website that is still dated with a December 2009 calendar. While December 2009 might have been a good month, it is doing nothing to help market your company. Possible client's assumed you went out of business and moved onto the listing underneath you. And a bad website design can actually hurt your business rather than help it. Lesson: Invest in a well designed website run by a real company from day one. Trying to take the cheap route will cost you more in the long run. #2) The SEO Optimization Specialist SEO, what? SEO, who? Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving your ranking on the internet so your website shows up at the top of a search page. Basically this means when you do an internet search for, "Pet Stores, San Diego, CA", an SEO specialist can help your link for "Susie's Reptiles and Fuzzies" show up higher than "Doug's Dog's and Cat's" . You are more likely to be found and receive business.

SEO optimization is tricky, and time consuming. There are many rules for how to rank high in Google, and many times the rules change. So how do you find an SEO specialist? Today most website designers are also SEO specialists, so make sure when purchasing your website, you are also comfortable with their SEO capabilities. Lesson: The common person does not have the time or energy to play the SEO optimization game, nor do they care. Get your website guy to do it, or contract it out. #3) The VISUAL's company I realize I lost you many of you on this one, but stay with me. Your Visual company is the people or company you hire to enhance your website through visual elements. Your Visuals company would include your commercial photography, as well as your video. As most of you should already know, consumers are visual! Yes, I know, I know, many of you think you are photographers because you bought that high-tech camera down at the Big Box store and you can do some really funky stuff on Photo Shop, but I am sorry to tell you, you are not a photographer! And, if you insist on buying those cheap generic stock images just to fill in the website space, how does the consumer really know you are a real company and not just some random person in a foreign country who threw up a website? Recently I posted an ad on craigslist for a website designer. I got multiple replies from professionals who had active websites, but these websites were almost all text, splattered with some cheap stock images of office buildings. As I looked closer, I realized their "Contact Us" section had a 1-800 number. And as I looked even closer, I realized there was a possibility this company was not even in the United States, and was most likely in India. Professional photography can never be replaced by amateur photography or cheap stock images, which can make a company look small or fake. "I see so many people who try to take the cheap way out when doing their photography," said Sallie LeBlanc, owner of Visual Advantages, LLC, a commercial photo and video production company in Dallas-Fort Worth, www.visualadvantages.com , but they always pay for it in the long run, either by losing customers, or by having to re-shoot later with a real professional." Your visual company will partner with your website designer to finish your website, and make it stand out from the other thousands of other websites. Professional photography can engage your customer, create a brand, and can even make a small company look huge! Now let's talk about video. Statistics show that the more engaged your customer becomes in your website, the more likely they are to become a customer. With video, you are not only engaging your customer, but you are teaching them! Many times it is hard to explain a product or service over the internet, but video can bridge the gap between a consumer quickly clicking though your site, and one that is actively learning about you and what you can offer. Lesson: Consumers are visual. Professional photography and video can make your company's website or social media look stellar, as well as engage your customer. Don't whip out your digital camera or camcorder, or plug up your website with cheap stock images. Leave the visual elements to the professionals, and develop your brand. 4) The Social Media Manager Ahhh, Social Media Manager! A title of a person who did not exist so long ago. A title you may not even recognize. Social Media Managers are the ones who continually update your website so consumers do not think you went out of business. They write your blogs, tweet for you on twitter, run your Face Book, and stay up to date on your competition. They may also create polls on Face Book, or organize live events. Your Social Media Manager may even take on the role of PR Rep by writing Press Releases, on occasion. Social Media Managers are the cohesive unit between your live business, your website, and all your social media outlets. But many people put social media on a back burner, thinking it secondary, and hand it off to an intern or friend with no vested interest in their company. Recently I was on the Face Book page of a local restaurant who posted that that they had a "buy one, get one free lunch special" coupon on their website . All of the Face Book fans flocked to the website lusting after that free plate of pasta, only to find an expired coupon from a year ago. A restaurant employee later told me their Face Book fan page was being run by a student, in another state. Lesson: Invest in a Social Media Manager if you do not have the time to tweet on Twitter, post on Face Book, or blog your little heart out. This can be a full-time position for larger companies, or for small business, this could simply mean a small monthly fee for a contractor who is off site but dedicated to promoting your brand. Also, I would highly recommend finding someone local, who keeps up with current events in your city, rather than farming the job out to a telecommuter. And sometimes your website guy may try to take over this role, but it is better to let him focus on what he does best, the technical side of your website and SEO ! OVERVIEW Social Media Marketing may be new territory for most businesses, but with the right people in place, you can be an active competitor. Most businesses will never reach their greatest potential until they are actively optimizing their social media. If you make the time to find the right people to create and manage your website, SEO, visuals, as well as social media communications, it will be time and money well spent. Once you have these companies and individuals in place, be sure and introduce them to one another. Together they can be a well oiled machine that can drive your business to the next level. Sallie LeBlanc is a photo shoot producer and photo stylist in Dallas- Fort Worth, TX.

Minding Your Business-12 Things To Consider When Starting A Home Based Business

Presented on US Sports Net By Yahoo Small Business!

By: Theuns Victor

Getting Out Of The "Rat-Race" Are you tired of commuting to a job you hate? Then it is time to consider a change and making the decision is easy once you know; "What, Where, When and How?" The exhilaration of firing one's boss and having the freedom to get out of bed and into your own empire each day is dawning with more and more people each and every day. Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting - Build a great web site with our easy-to-use tools Simply not having to start the day commuting or having to sit in clogged up traffic for 2 to 4 hours a day already makes the thought of working for oneself the most desirable of all. Getting out of the corporate world and the lifestyle associated with it is another consideration. Most people today get up in the morning imposing personal pressure on themselves just to go and do a job which nobody else would do and which they themselves hate with passion but, the truth of the matter is that the majority fall into this flow of life because that is what society require and that is what their ancestors did, which is to work the daily grind for 35 to 40 years just to be forgotten when they hit retirement. Getting Started The thought of working for oneself is a marvellous idea and you have decided this is what you want to do with the rest of your life but, the ugly truth is where does one begin? Not having an idea of what you want to do with this Home Based Business of yours and simply jumping into a well of quicksand is something which can very quickly turn into a nightmare. Myself I have been dreaming of having an online marketing business for almost 20 years. When the day came that I had the opportunity to start my own "Home Based Online Marketing Business" the tenacity and vigour with which I was soon brought to a screeching halt and woke up from the dream made me realize that jumping on the proverbial bandwagon online was not going to make me a successful businessman overnight and I realized that there were much more involved in building a business online. Starting a business from scratch already is a huge challenge but starting such a business online brings out even more challenges and the volume of knowledge required to build and create a successful business is enormous in comparison to what one think you know. Below follow "12 Must Consider Aspects to starting your first Home Based Business. When considering the founding of your future successful Home Based Business include the following in your "To Do" List. Quote: The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done... you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do". Lil Wayne End Quote 12 Pillars To Creating A Successful Home Based Business 1. Determine what it is you Wish to Accomplish. In other words establish a "WHY"?. Many fail in their attempts to start and grow a successful Home Based Business because they simply never set goals and decided where it is they want to go with the business. "Why are you doing what you have set out to do"? 2. Determine the Type of Business you want to create. It is of utmost importance that you decide whether your business is going to be an Online Business or an Offline Business or a combination of the two. 3. Get Organized. Many operations and projects have failed in the past simply because there is no drive to get organized. Every home has some free space available. Organize a place where you can establish an "office", maybe a small corner in the dining room, a place in the garage, any place where you can put a table or small desk to use as an office. Do not procrastinate on this; the easiest way to start is to get started! You and your family should realize that "work is work" and "home is home". 4. Determine a Routine. Even though you are working for yourself from home there are certain things that have to be done daily. Determining when you are going to do it is an essential element for success. Although you determine your hours the work that need to be done determine the number of hours and "When" these hours per day are allocated. 5. Determine your Niche. Trust me falling blindly into a pool of dark water could be very hazardous to your overall health. Establishing who you want to address with the product or service you want to render is paramount to success. 6. Determine the Model of Your Home Based Business. Some people have great success in recruiting people; others have success in working one on one. What you have to establish is whether your business is going to be a one man/woman operation or whether you want to get involved in a Multi Level Marketing system. Each has its benefits however, they also have certain limitations. Doing some research before making a final decision on what model you are going to follow could save a lot of time, frustration and disappointment. 7. Determine the solution to a problem. Now is a good time to determine which product or service you are going to provide to your future customers. Remember your overall priority should be to help people who are experiencing a specific problem. Maybe you have your own product or you are excellent in consulting people with a specific need and helping them to satisfy that need or solve their problem. If you do not have a product or service you could make use of Affiliate Marketing to provide the solution to their problem. 8. Acquire the Tools To Develop and Manage Your Business. If you have a computer and a mobile phone and you have established your home "office" you are already halfway through this process. However, if a large portion of your business is going to come via the internet you will need other tools to consider and to obtain. Here we think of things like registering a domain, creating a website, tracking in order to determine where your potential customers came from, autoresponders and various other requirements. Before going head first into signing up to site after site first do some research and find the best hosting, tracking and advertising sites you can. They will be with you for a long time so make sure you get this one right. 9. Register with Payment Processors and Affiliate Networks. This is a very important aspect. Before you go into just signing up to any or all payment processors and affiliate networks think back what exactly it is you want to accomplish. Many people get themselves so cluttered with sites which actually have no purpose for there "WHY" that they get lost in all the bookmarked sites in their web browser. When registering also take time to read through the terms and conditions and make sure that you have a fair idea of what the rules of these sites are and what influence they could or could not have to the success of your business. 10. Determine "HOW" You are going to Promote Your Business. Every business need advertising, whether online or offline. There are many ways of advertising and promoting your business however, some means of advertising work better for certain types of businesses than others. Before just getting into advertising and promoting it is essential that you do some research in this field as well. Before spending $100's and even $1,000's on advertising which don't work take the time and find the advertising tools which would work for your specific Niche. Trying to promote baseballs to football players would not do any good now would it? 11. Get Rid of the Junk. In your progress toward building up this business of yours if there is one thing you should absolutely not overlook it is the following: • Offline you will find many who will try to talk you into posting an advertisement in their monthly bulletin. Be on the lookout. This could cost you plenty over time without bringing in a return on your investment simply for the reason that your ad is not relevant in relationship to other ads in the bulletin and the audience it is set to address. Avoid this kind of unnecessary cost. • Online you will come across a multitude of offers promising overnight success and instant riches for a mere $7. These cheap products are the beginning of a process to suck you into a realm in which you will eventually max out your credit card, get into debt and month after month you will sit in agony not knowing where tomorrows food is going to come from. Take extra caution before investing in anything that looks even a little better than good, there are tons of places where you could find a similar product free which will keep the initial costs in establishing your business down. • If the biggest portion of your business is going to be online specifically, do not get put of or discouraged by the so called experts out there telling you, you won't make it and you do not have the right mindset. Many of the so-called "gurus" and these "Super Marketers" use this as a tactic to suck you into their world. Toss it off and maintain focus. • Finally lay the foundation and then build your house. You will come across geniuses who will put up the roof before they have built the walls and then hope to lay the foundation afterwards. One does not build a house without a foundation. Rather spend more time getting yourself organized, doing proper research, and getting all the tools in place to make a success of your business than to jump in, make a few quick bucks and then you find that you are on a dry sandbank in the middle of the ocean all on your own. The preparation and planning of your business is 50% of the struggle won. Having to come back and do it over is frustrating and can cost you valuable time and a lot of unnecessary money. 12. Legalities and Other Rules. To save yourself hours of frustration and to be sure to understand what the Do's and Dont's are take time to read through some of the Terms and Conditions and Rules and Regulations as you signup to sites. Also it is a good idea to address things like Tax Requirements, Affiliate Agreements and things like this. Trust me sometimes one is in a hurry and then because of a lack of the right information or a shortage thereof you can find yourself in a haven of frustration just for not clicking the right radio button, it happens. The satisfaction of owning a business which one know you have build from the floor must be something every successful businessman/woman cherish at some point. However, the hurdles, barricades and pitfalls, in achieving this can bring many to a halt before they make that breakthrough to success. Knowing what to do, how to be aware of the things which can and cannot influence one's success could bring a much higher success rate than is presently the case. In your attempt to overcome these hurdles take note of what others have already experienced and learn from that instead of having to go to boot camp over and over.  After being in the military and part of the corporate world for 37 years I have been pushed into early retirement and decided that this was the time to chase my dream. Read my full bio at http://www.reducethebs.com/aboutus.html

Yahoo Small Business-Minimizing Flaws in Your Website

Presented on US Sports Net by Yahoo Small Business!

BY PHIL GRIER | SMALL BUSINESS

The day your site goes live is certainly cause for celebration. It’s also the day the real work begins. You’ll need to monitor it on an ongoing basis for security vulnerabilities, usability issues and content errors. Fortunately though, minimizing the flaws in your website before you launch can be accomplished more easily when you use a good small business website builder.

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Enlist the assistance of the most fastidious people you can find. You want relentlessly ruthless reviewers who will revel in revealing every flaw—no matter how small. These should be people you’d avoid in every other social situation, because you can’t stand the criticism that oozes freely from their lips. And, while you’d probably avoid them in every other circumstance, they are the most perfectly suited for this one.

Website Builder - Easily create a beautiful, mobile friendly website for as little as $7/mo!

Here are the key things to have them look for.

Content Errors Sometimes information will become outdated the moment you post it. Unleashing those impartial eyes on your site to look for content errors will be a huge help before you launch. If the site is vast, have each of them focus on a specific section of the site—ideally one in which they have some expertise. Avoid having the people who wrote your content look over their own work. They will miss slip-ups they made. The brain has a way of tricking writers into overlooking their own missteps.

Dead Links Here’s a fatal flaw that is often overlooked, broken hyperlinks. Dead links detract from the user experience and diminish your SEO (search engine optimization). The good news is there are a number of tools available to help you accomplish this. However, it’s a good idea to enlist real human beings to go through and check them as well.

Accurate Meta Tags As the reviewers go through your site, charge them with ensuring each page has accurate titles, relevant keywords, the proper description and good image tags. While your users might not care one way or another about these things, search engines do—big time. What’s the point of having a thoroughly scoured website if it can’t be indexed properly?

Security Features Advanced security features might require someone with a bit more expertise to review. But novice users can probe functions such as user name requirements, password protections and secondary authorizations. When it comes to security, you should always try it before you rely on it.

The concerns listed above will need to be reviewed to make sure everything is correct. Meanwhile, the best small website builders will take care of design and navigation issues, as long as you plug the right information into the right fields. Yahoo Small Business has the perfect templates you need to get your website idea off the ground in no time. Choose yours today!

Phil Grier is an ecommerce veteran who has spent more than 10 years advising sellers how to build successful online stores, as well as having experience running his own online retail store. He’s been a panelist at PROSPER and other industry events, and has been quoted in numerous articles about site optimization and steps to take to increase sales.