Saturday, March 31, 2007

Using Your Blog to Increase Your Business

As recently as a couple of years ago, no one in his right senses even remotely considered the idea of using blogs for promoting his business. Go back a few years further and you will find the word blog itself was not in any popular use. What once started as an idle person’s random thoughts expressed in unorganized writing pieces posted on a website has now, in a very brief time-span, become a pastime for millions around the world. Every day, there are thousands of novices getting into the act of blogging. This number has increased considerably due to the fact that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other prominent players on the web facilitated it by offering free blogs. Despite this phenomenal expansion of the universe of blogs, very few have realized that they can post a blog to serve their business and financial interests.

Blogs have transformed many areas of peoples lives including the web, politics and journalism. Businessmen are just trying to understand how they can make blogs impact their business for profit. When, without any inhibition or reservation, the ever-growing millions of strangers are opening up their minds and hearts to get connected across the globe, isn’t there even a small opportunity for you to persuade these people to open their purses for making a purchase of your products? Perhaps there is some. Perhaps there is none. But, surely, blogs will inspire you to explore if there is any such opportunity.

If you notice that there are, among the unknown millions that are blogging, your customers, potential customers, competitors and potential competitors, you certainly like to catch up. You want to exploit the blogging explosion affecting the Internet in order to promote your business. You know you are going to lose out, if you ignore it.

Your blogs need not just be your publicized wishes. You may advertise your business through your blog, You may get creative ideas for improving it from your blog, when others give their feedback. There is an unbridled information universe out there, so it may somewhat be a tedious affair to enter, only to be lost in the wilderness. But it may be worth the effort if you happen to hit the right spots. Try hard enough and you may quietly earn many bloggers’ support for your business. You can monitor bloggers’ reactions to your business, without resorting to expensive and extensive field surveys. If you wish to know who is saying what on the web and do not know how to, go get the tools designed exactly for the purpose. There are quite a few available that make your market research easy for you. Have you heard of Really Simple Syndication? Or, Podcasting? If not, find out all about them and how you can use them for your business promotion.

Blogging can help create hype for a new product or explain the usefulness of an old one. Be sure to post relevant information on your blog to keep your prospective clients coming back for more. For example, if you have a website that sells hunting gear, you could blog about the latest camo gear, taxidermy, or where to buy hunting licenses. The information you provide does not necessarily have to be on products you sell, but on topics that interest your customers.

As of now, perhaps, any massive promotion of your business using your blogs may be a distant dream, but after you get started, you will find that you can compile a lot of great information in a very short period of time.


TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Spend Money to Make Money

We have all heard the phrase you have to spend money to make money at some point. This is very true in the business world. The goal of every business is to reduce expenses while increasing revenue. While doing this can be difficult at times, there are some great ideas businesses can implement to do just that.

Advertising and marketing strategies can be time consuming and expensive. However, they get the information about your product or service out to the target market. Take the time to explore the marketing options that are available to you. Spending more doesn’t always result in a higher yield of customers. You might also consider using more than one advertising method to ensure your information gets exposure to an even great amount of people.

New products keep up the hype
Creating new products to market or making improvements to current products is an expensive process. However, if your current products aren’t keeping up with the demands of the market, you will continue to lose more and more customers to the competitors who are making changes to meet the wants and needs of consumers.

Upgrades may be worth the expense
Consider investing in upgrades to your computers, software, and other business machines. It is amazing the amount of time that is wasted in businesses that have older equipment and software. Investing in these improvements can lead to profitable increases in production.

Customer Service Counts
Quality customer service is very important to consumers. If your customer service could use improving, it is well worth the investment. Spending money to upgrade their equipment and extra training to improve their knowledge of the product will result in customers who are more satisfied. Customers who are satisfied are more likely to be repeat customers in the future.

Investing money to give your business a make over or upgrade can make it appear fresh and new to consumers. This simple process can rejuvenate an interest in your business. It is amazing how much warmth and appeal painting the exterior and interior gives a business. You might also consider new windows, doors, and carpet. Doing this can also give the impression that your business is doing well. A business that is doing well is perceived as providing quality products or services.

A debated practice of spending money to make money is to offer a higher wage for employees. This will encourage a higher standard of individuals applying for jobs with your company. It will also keep your good employees from seeking employment elsewhere. The cost of hiring new employees and training them is very expensive. Have a workshop for current employees at least every six months. Make the workshop fun and energizing. The goal of such an investment is to rejuvenate their interest in the company and their role in doing a great job.

Every business strives to spend as little money as possible. However, it is the wise businessman who understands the importance of investing money now to save money in the long term life of the business. Defining that line can be difficult at times, but education, research, and a keen business sense can all play a role in making such important decisions.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Self-empowerment and making the right choices

Self-empowerment simply means taking charge of your own life, you and only you decides what is right for you and where you want to go in the future, you make your own decisions and stick with them, not giving in to doubt or fear that you may have made the wrong choice. It is simply about taking your own life back into your own hands and listening to your inner self instead of relying on others for your future happiness and success.

Most of us rely on others to make decisions for us and we go along with them, this can be for many different reasons such as insecurity, low self-esteem or simply because it seems the easiest way to go. We do this in a variety of situations, some are as simple as choosing which movie to go and see and you follow along with your partner’s choice or where you want to go and eat. Taking your life back into your own hands and making your own choices is a simple as making healthy positive choices be they mental, emotional or physical. The following are all tips for making the right choices that enables you to become self-empowering.

Replace negative thoughts with positive
We all have self-doubt at sometime or other, this is natural, but too many negative thoughts harm our way of thinking. Negative thinking however always seems to be so much easier to instil than positive, whether we care to believe it or not our feelings and how we feel or think does have a huge impact on our lives and what we think we are capable of achieving or not. We can so easily talk ourselves out of making decisions and choices if we listen to that small doubtful inner voice that so often shows up. It is those two little words that so often come to mind even without paying them much attention, “what if”, that cause so many problems. Once the “what if’s” have surfaced then self-doubt begins to take over every time and we can then go from a positive attitude to a negative one very quickly. Affirmations work well for changing negative thinking into positive thinking and affirmations are simply positive short statements that are repeated to oneself out loud or just in the mind. Write down four or five simple short statements and when self-doubt and the “what if’s” creep in consciously replace it with one of your chosen affirmations.

Avoid blaming others for your negative thoughts
Realise that it is you and only you which puts these negative thoughts there, for example if you get stuck in a traffic jam then you can curse and work yourself up all you want but it wont change the fact that your stuck in a jam. Do not blame other drivers, the road works holding you up etc., take responsibility for the fact that you chose to drive that way, you set off at that particular time and instead of stressing yourself and those around you just let it go and focus on aspects that are more positive while you are stuck. Take this time to listen to that new CD you bought, read the report from your briefcase, practise affirmations or a stress reducing exercise, there are many more positive things you can do during this time than think negative.

Decide what it is that you want
Start with the little everyday choices that you are faced with, for example when asked what movie you want to go and see, stop and think and make a choice don’t just ask what your partner or friend would like to see. When asked which restaurant you would like to go to, give a decisive answer. Take control of your life in the small ways first and build up gradually until you are comfortable with this new way of thinking. It will probably take a while for this new, more confident and positive way of thinking becomes easy, after all you have let negative thoughts and feelings rule your life for so long, they wont change overnight. By practising and pulling yourself up when negative thoughts and feelings enter your mind and doing this day in and day out slowly you will gain control back over your life and become more self-empowered.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Marketing your Website with Google Adwords

Why would you choose Google for marketing your website, unless for good reasons? Not only is using Google a good reason, but it’s an excellent one. Google generates more than a third of the searches all the search engines combined make. It also has a say in the results listed on AOL and Netscape and others thus increasing your websites exposure from the Google ad network. Google helps you market your website better through its AdWords. Even if you are already listed on Google and appear on its search results, you can reach new audiences through AdWords. Google ad network is also accessible in languages like German, Italian and Spanish. One other advantage is that you can edit your ad and regulate your spending on AdWords till you are satisfied with the results. And the best thing is you have to pay only when someone clicks your ad. You pay nothing for placing an ad on the Google network.

Choosing your keywords
People search for websites using certain keywords relevant to what they are looking for. The better the choice of these keywords, the better the success of their search. For marketing your website on Google, you similarly have to use the right and the most appropriate keywords that best describe your website content. Your ad with these keywords appears on Google beside the relevant search results people get to see. For this, of course, you need to sign up on Google AdWords. When people click your ad, they get to know about you and your products and services. They could then make a purchase from you.

The importance of choosing the best keywords possible for placing your ad on Google cannot be over emphasized. Search engines recognize the content of your website and its pages through the keywords used. It is not just imperative for you to fill your web pages with quality content rich in these keywords, but it is also essential to help search engine optimization by distributing your targeted keywords across the content in a most appropriate way. Remember it is not the abundance of keywords but their right positioning that prompts the search engines to land on your desired page. Proper placement of the targeted keywords, called the keyword density, in each of your web pages helps in obtaining a higher Search Engine page rank than otherwise. Obviously, the higher the page rank you achieve, the lighter the competition will be in getting the search engine land to help visitors land on your page, resulting in increasing number of visitors and sales.

Since the success of drawing your targeted customers to the sales counter on your web page depends so much on the keywords used, you may naturally seek outside help in choosing them, particularly when you find it rather difficult to make choices of your own. Apart from the umpteen sources of ready help for a fee, you can also make use of the keyword tool that is available. The tool generates several keywords for your ad campaign. You can go through the Google statistics and decide which of the keywords have the potential for making your ad succeed. It cannot ever be guaranteed that your chosen keywords will work, except by repeated trial and editing. And with Google AdWords, you always have the opportunity to edit your keywords and ads.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

How Important Is Your Domain Name?

Domain names are definitely very important for website marketing and the promotion of your business. There are countless unknown junk websites, hosted by free web hosting services or Internet Service Providers, without their own domain names, which are just there but not doing any great business. And there are many well-known websites, commercially successful, whose very domain names rake in tons of money. It is likely that a few of the former variety are doing some profitable marketing, but the chances of successful marketing by those with their own domain names get multiplied. For some reason, over the years, people have developed a prejudice against websites that have not got their own domain names. Most of these cannot win any customers. With a professional look, which accompanies companies with own domain names, business naturally prospers.

To appreciate better how important domain names are for promoting business on the web, let us understand what domain names actually do rather than what they actually are. Every computer connected to the Internet is allotted a unique number, rather a unique string of numbers, called the Internet Protocol (IP) address, for its website identification. This number is not based on the geographical location of the computer, for one thing. For another, it is dependent on the web hosting companies that provide their service to the computer concerned. That is the number is changeable, not fixed forever. Unlike the IP addresses, domain names are easy on the mind and, once registered, remain unchanged. Domain names of prosperous companies have become Internet household names. If your website is successful, the popularity of your domain name grows, which in turn drives your business better.

Structure of a domain name
A domain name has at least two parts in its structure. Take hp.com as an example. The suffix (.com ) is known as the top level domain and the prefix (hp) the subordinate level domain. Top level domains indicate the areas of interest or activity of the websites registered under them. For instance, .edu is for websites related to education and .gov to government agencies and so on. So when you think of a domain name for your business, you will typically want it to be under a .com because it is the easiest to remember. However, with the incredible number of domain names out there, .biz, .tv, .us among others, have been introduced as new top level domains. What is most important is your choice of the subordinate level domain for your domain name.

Here comes the role the keywords play in your choice. If you know that search engines locate your website more easily when your domain name is keyword-related than otherwise, you will chose a domain name that earns your website a high page rank. Your business will thus succeed better if your domain name is more search engine friendly.

Make your domain name short, simple and sweet for making at once memorable and easily visible to search engines. Do not use spaces and symbols. They are not allowed. Only letters, numbers and dashes are permitted in domain names. Also, always remember to renew your domain name registration before the it expires.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Email Strategies for the Successful Business

Email has now become a very important means of promoting your Internet business. It has many advantages over traditional promotional strategies. It reaches the target audience, bypassing intermediaries. It is very personal, as the decision-maker, the one who decides to buy, gets to know you as a seller, and vice versa. It is virtually free and it’s fast too. Its spread is wide in that you can reach, at once, any number of buyers looking for your product or service. Best of all, email allows you to be in constant touch with your customers for receiving feedback, for improving your sales as well as for modifying your email marketing strategies without much time loss.

Sounds great, but it can appear much more different when you realize that you have to outdo your innumerable competitors in order to achieve success in your business. For this, you have to devise effective email marketing strategies. Remember that what works for others may or may not work for you. But there are some basic principles all follow in promoting their businesses.

Finding out who your target audience is, making an initial small subscriber list, determining when and how often you wish to send emails, identifying your major promotional goals, sending a few test emails and analyzing the results for future adoption or modification are usually considered to be important. But what is cardinal for the success of your business is the design of the email itself.

What to include in your emails
The subject and the very first line of your email will make or break your customer- relationship. Make them short, simple and seductive. People are tempted to open emails only when the subject line holds enough punch. Emails, like skirts, should be long enough to cover the essentials and short enough to be interesting. Long and boring emails probably won’t have the desired effect. While a brief introduction to you and your products and services will be welcome, what actually rivets the reader’s attention is your focus on customer benefits. A small incentive or discount to the first few customers may be offered, for instance. Or, offer useful information that interests the reader. If you have several points to make, instead of running them in a single paragraph, present them one by one highlighting them with bullets. Graphics and photos will definitely embellish your email and attract the customer’s attention. Incorporating links to your website pages in the email is like providing a life line for your business. Your sales presentation, to give an example, can be done by drawing the customer to your website through a link in the email. It is preferable to provide direct links to your website pages where the customer can readily find the listings of your products and services rather than give a link to your home page.

Keep it simple
The basic principle is to make everything as easy as possible for the customer to get hooked to your business proposition. Also, put in place a privacy policy that assures your customers that their personal information will not be revealed, sold or misused. Despite your best efforts, however, if the customer would want to unsubscribe, give him the facility. Finally, include all possible contact information along with your signature: name and address, telephone number, email address, fax number etc.

You may consider using an email marketing software package for managing your website and email lists. This type of software automatically organizes large email lists, subscribes website visitors, deletes unsubscribed persons, responds to emails and does many other things that make your email marketing management very convenient. Shop around for software to find one that meets your needs.

The success of your business through email marketing strategies depends on your reliability and consistency as much as on the unique utility of your product or service.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Cutting Costs for Your Business

For a business to be profitable, revenue must exceed expenses. To increase the amount of revenue, many businesses look for ways to reduce expenses. Start by analyzing your current expenses. Categorize them into two distinct groups, one for expenses you have to have, and the other for expenses you can possibly lower or eliminate from your business budget.

Travel and entertainment
The areas most businesses can drastically cut down on are travel and entertainment expenses. You can still have a Christmas party, but scale it down to the staff only rather than inviting spouses. Change the location to save on cost. If your company is in jeopardy of survival your employees will understand. Discuss the reasons why such changes are taking place in advance.

Necessary expenses
Take a look at expenditures including insurance and cleaning. Have your insurance and other variable expenses re-evaluated. You may be eligible for additional discounts. Comparison shop with other companies as well to ensure the best rates possible for the coverage you need. If you are spending large amounts of money to have the office cleaned, consider cutting the services back one or two days per week. This will result in a large savings over time.

High phone and utility bills are often an area most businesses can reduce costs in. Make sure lights and business equipment are turned off when not in use. Have employees keep a log of long distance phone calls. Avoid making them if at all possible. Try alternate communication methods including email and letters.

Standardize your business equipment. Make sure all staff is well trained in their operations. This will result in more productivity and less down time overall. Make sure the use of office supplies is not abused. Recycle paper and binders whenever possible. Consider changing to lower wattage light bulbs to further reduce the utility costs.

Buy in bulk
Another great way to save on business expenses is to purchase items in bulk through a wholesaler. By cutting out the middleman, you will reduce your costs. Reduce the amount of inventory you have on head. It is expensive to store it. If you operate a business with seasonal fluctuations, consider running consistently all year long. This will eliminate the expense of paying overtime during the busy season.

It is very easy for business expenses to spiral out of control it they are not carefully monitored. It is important to evaluate your expenses on a regular basis, and make adjustments as necessary. Keeping your expenses as low as possible will enable the business to increase revenue without increasing production or marketing.

Consider asking your employees to contribute ways the business can save money. Since they are on the front line every day, they can often pick up on things that management doesn’t see as easily. Every little change can add up to large savings over the course of time. Employees who take pride in their work are more likely to be conservative at work with supplies and resources. Do your best to keep the work environment positive and inviting.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Tips for getting out of a rut

Do you feel stuck in your life? Has the world suddenly seemed to have closed in around you? In addition, are you are doing the same thing day in, day out? If this sounds like your life then you are probably stuck in a rut, with what seems to be no way out.

Being stuck in a rut can drag you down, make you feel depressed, or as if life is something you just go through but have long since stopped enjoying. You become this way slowly without even realizing it, until one day you wonder what happened and when.

For many of us our daily life is governed by some form of routine which we cannot avoid, for example going to work 8 hours a day, taking the kids to school each morning, this is daily life and routine which for the most part cannot be changed. Another reason behind routine is the safety barrier; we get comfortable with our lives and feel secure in them, so why change?

However, sometimes routine can start to get us down, leave us with a feeling of dissociation and start causing problems in relationships, work and daily life in general, we gradually become unhappy. This is when a change is needed; this is the time to dig yourself out of the hole you have put yourself in and start enjoying life again.

Here are some tips to help you begin to take back control over you life and get out of the rut.

• Do at least one thing everyday that is different to your normal routine, this could be something as simple as taking a short break and going for a walk, sitting down to read a chapter of a book or any other hobby or pastime you once enjoyed.
• Take up a new hobby, make sure that you give yourself some times throughout the day to just enjoy something you like doing.
• Shake up meal times by having something different, you can either try a different recipe or order different take out, try foods from different cultures.
• Get out and meet new people, there are many ways you can achieve this, join a gym, club or attend a self-improvement class or hobby class.
• Drive a different way to work or if possible walk or start bicycling, not only will this break the rut you are in but also get you fitter.
• Take up a new sport; there are many types of sport with something for the fitter to the more moderate forms of exercise.
• Do something each day that is totally out of character for you, start off with small changes and work your way up to bigger ones.
• If you are stuck at home with children then change your routine throughout the day, don’t always do the same chore at the same time, shake up the way you do your housework.
• Make small changes around the home or work area.
• De-clutter your home or work area; it is surprising how being surrounded by clutter can get you down.


TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Developing your full potential

While many of us are happy in life and do accomplish to some extent what we set out to do, there aren’t many that actually push themselves that little bit further and go on to develop their full potential. While we might be particularly good at doing certain things in life we could excel if only we had the courage and belief in ourselves to go for it.

As children we are full of excellent ideas, they never stop flowing because we have an open mind and belief in ourselves that we can accomplish just about anything. However, as we grow up fear of if we are doing the right thing and of speaking out and being ridiculed takes over and we stem the flow of our imagination and ideas. We hold back our thoughts and this can stop us from developing our full potential.

There are many ways you can start developing your potential, it’s never too late. You should remember that there is no right and wrong way of thinking and many times the reason why others try to make you feel inferior when you voice opinions and ideas is because they wish they had had the idea and courage to speak up. So focus on your skills and abilities and let your thoughts run free, put them to use and truly excel in life.

In order to be successful you should realize that you will sometimes make mistakes, no one is perfect and mistakes are ok providing you acknowledge them and learn from them. Characteristics that you can nurture and that will lead to developing your true and full potential include:

• Working hard – putting your all into everything you do when working towards what you want in life
• Having patience – things don’t happen overnight so have patience and you will be rewarded
• Determination – stick to your guns and never give in when things don’t go your way or you come across hurdles
• Commitment – be committed towards your goals and what you what to achieve, set goals in mind and don’t let anything or anyone stand in your way of reaching them
• Organizational skills – the more organized you are the easier the road to success will be, plan out your ideas to their fullest before putting them into action
• Learn from mistakes – you will make mistakes along the way but you can learn valuable lessons from these and move on
• Confidence in yourself – you have to be self-confident and believe in yourself and your ideas, there is no room for doubt
• Stay realistic – don’t set yourself goals that you cannot realistically achieve in a set amount of time, by setting yourself unrealistic goals you are setting yourself up for failure again and again.

When developing your full potential the two most important things to remember are, what you want out of life and what you can realistically do to make that possible. Once you have these facts clear then you can go full steam ahead towards achieving what you want.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com

Dealing with disappointment

No matter how hard we try and how positive we try to remain about situations, we all end up having to deal with disappointments sometime during our life. We plan, we set goals in order to succeed in life but invariably, even though we give it our best shot, things don’t turn out as expected and disappointment sets in. Disappointment in itself is not particularly a bad thing; its how we choose to deal with it that can make a difference. If we simply choose to accept the failure and allow the disappointment to wash over us and quickly go away we don’t suffer adverse consequences, it is only when we allow the disappointment to linger and we dote on it that negativity and bad feelings can stay with us.

Some disappointment in life can be good for us because it allows us to grow and develop and practice thinking positively, going through disappointment and coming out the other side still wearing a smile makes us realize that no matter what life throws at us we can overcome it. Here are some tips to help you deal with and overcome disappointment when it rears its head.

• Realize that grief, stress, anxiety, fear, pain and suffering are just a natural part of life that we have to go through, it’s how we deal with it and come out the other side that matters.
• If family members or loved ones are causing you disappointments remember that no one is invulnerable, you cannot always live up to your expectations or yourself so how can you expect others to be perfect.
• When faced with disappointment instead of looking at it as though it is a bad thing, welcome it and think of it as a test or challenge.
• When things go wrong analyze the situation, see what you can learn from it and then let it go.
• If you are constantly running into a brick wall when trying to reach long term goals, remember there cannot be failure unless you give up, so keep trying until you get there.
• If you run into a dead end turn around and go another way, by staying flexible you are able to obtain your goal any way you can.
• Don’t except anything more from life than what you are willing to put in, if you don’t expect anything more, you won’t be disappointed.
• If you are having a particularly bad time overcoming disappointment it can help to talk about it, by talking about it and letting it out you realize that you are not alone when it comes to suffering disappointment.
• Patience can really be a blessing when it comes to dealing with disappointment, just simply let the feelings pass over you and disappear and get back on the right track.
• Don’t be conned by foolish and unreasonable expectations about life, if you are constantly looking for perfection then you will be disappointed for sure.

TJ Klock is an Internet Marketer in Internet Home Based Businesses As well As an Authority on Developing Home Based Internet Businesses Part Time. To find the best home based business tips, and work at home ideas and opportunities Visit: A-New-Start-Today.com