Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Kevin Kielty
Tips for Starting a New Online Business
One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses online and offline make is that they do not have a plan for success. Even though it is an online business, you should still have a business plan and you should have a search marketing strategy and know that you are targeting a large enough market. You should do searches online on Google, and Yahoo, and MSN, and see which of your competitors come up for that search term.
You should also do some market research analysis so that you know which search terms people are searching for the most. Some search terms might only produce a couple, 10 or 20 searches a day, and other search terms might have several thousand a day. You will need a big enough market to target because you will be sharing that market with your competitors.
What it all comes down to in the end is that you have about 10 or 20 competitors on the front page of Google, Yahoo and MSN. You need to do the following well, to compete with these competitors.
1. Your website needs to have a better presentation than your competitors. This means a more engaging demonstration of the products and services you sell.
2. You need to come up as high as possible in the search engines either through search engine marketing or paid sponsored ads also known as pay-per-click.
3. Optimize your website so that search engines can find you organically. This is also known as search engine optimization.
Common Mistakes Beginners Make
1. They start targeting and promoting keywords before they know the value of the keywords they are promoting.
2. When using pay-per-click advertising, they direct everyone to the front page of their website. As much as possible, direct your ads to a detailed web page which matches up to your prospective customers search term.
Tips for a Successful Online Advertising Campaign
1. Have a customized landing page, which takes the prospective customer to the exact product, or service page for which they are searching.
2. To have a cost effective online marketing strategy there needs to be enough people searching for your product or service.
For example, if someone is searching for a particular type of guitar, your ad should feature that particular type of guitar. The more specific you are and the less searching the perspective customer has to do once they get to your web page, the more likely they are to contact you, buy your product, or take the action you want them to take.
You will need to research which search terms or keywords are searched on more frequently than other search terms so that you can make sure that you have the largest audience possible. You can do this using Google's keyword tool. Doing just this small amount of market research can make the difference between success or failure of your online business venture.
For example, if you're selling Widget A and there's only ten people a day in your area searching for Widget A, you are not going to be very successful. If however, there are 100,000 people a day searching for a Widget A and you only have two competitors who also sell Widget A, then there is room for you in that market.
Google's Keyword Tool and How to Use it
The first place to start with researching your keywords is the Google keyword tool, found here: (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) Below are some useful features of Google's keyword tool:
1. You can enter various phrases describing your businesses products or services into the search box. The tool will give you results on different phrases and synonyms matching your description. It will also tell you which search terms produce the largest amount of traffic on a monthly basis.
2. If you are targeting the entire United States then the monthly traffic column per keyword is very accurate. If you are targeting a particular state within the United States then you would need to divide that number by the percentage of population in that state.
3. Google's keyword tool also has a column that indicates the average cost per click for each search term. This can be helpful for forecasting how much to price your product or service. For example, if you are selling something for $10.00 and it costs you $10.00 to get enough people to your website before anyone buys your product then you need to rethink your pricing model. If however, your product sells for $20.00 and it only costs you $5.00 in advertising before someone buys your product, then you have a cost effective marketing campaign.
Other Search Engine Marketing Strategies
In addition to pay-per-click, you can pursue search engine marketing techniques such as:
1. Article Marketing
2. Directory Marketing
3. Community Forum Marketing
4. Channel Partner Marketing
The goal of all of these marketing techniques is to get a higher search engine ranking for the search terms you are targeting. All of the methods above include backlinks to your website. Backlinks to your website is the number one criteria used by search engines to rank your website.
Online Market Penetration
After you have done your market research, the next thing you will want to do is to determine if it is a growing market.
One of the ways you can discover if you are in a growing market is by using Google Trends. When using Google Trends, enter a search term which describes your business or industry into the search box and view the trend line in the results. If the trend line is moving up then you are in a growing market. If the trend line is moving down, then you are in a declining market. This will give you a good indication if it would be worthwhile for you to launch your business.
Another way to tell if there is room for you in a particular market is to look at your online competitors. Often times if their websites have not been updated in a while, it can indicate they are doing a good business. Also, if you have to scroll down to the second or third page of the search results before you find a decent looking web page, that can indicate a large market.
If you want a successful online business, follow these steps: Do the market research, do a competitive analysis and research the market trends for your industry, then you will be successful in your new online business.
About the Author:
Kevin Kielty writes for Internet Marketing Advantage in Raleigh, NC. Online marketing, and web design are his areas of expertise. Internet Marketing Advantage specializes in bringing together web design, and Raleigh Online Advertising at: http://www.raleighseocompany.net
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Feature Article: How to Use Information Products to Get More Referrals
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Judy Murdoch
A couple weeks ago, my good friend and colleague, Mary Walewski sent me an email that contained a link and the short message, "thought this might interest you."
The link was to download a promotions planning calendar; a calendar that included specific steps to take each month around setting up online promotions.
The calendar was f'ree and simple to download. All in all a useful little tool.
And throughout the calendar are promotions for paid webinars the calendar's author is offering. Now I'm not interested in the webinars... at least not right now. But now I know they are available and I'll be looking at the calendar at least once a week and getting reminders.
This is a great example of how a small business can use information products as a way to generate referrals that lead to new customers.
This is something you can do in your own business. If you aren't you are missing an opportunity to help people send you referrals.
==============================
How Information Products Make It Easier for Customers to Refer Business to You
==============================
Small business owners love customer referrals and for good reason. Customer referrals are incredibly powerful because they are sincere, personal endorsements made because the person making the referral wants to look good to their peers. If the referral works out it's a win for everyone.
The Downside of Referrals is They're Unpredictable. No matter how much your customers love you, sending you a referral is simply not their first priority. Not because they don't think you're awesome and would like to help. Because there are hundreds of other things, some urgent, that compete for their attention.
The good news is that there are things you as a business owner can do to increases the chances your customers will remember to refer you. One way to improve those chances is by using information products.
==============================
How Information Products Improve the Chances of Getting Referrals
==============================
To give you a referral, your customer must remember you in the context of the problem you solve. What does this mean?
Here's an example:
Dave is new to town and just bought a house. He moved in a couple days ago and finds his hot water heater has sprung a leak. He needs to take care the leak quickly so the small puddle around his water heater doesn't turn into a small lake.
Dave calls his neighbor, Pete who has lived in the neighborhood for ten years and asks Pete to recommend a good plumber. Pete tells Dave to call Main Street Plumbing because Steve is great at figuring out problems, his rates are reasonable, and he makes emergency house calls.
Now here's how memorability and context work.
If Dave and Pete met under most circumstances, would Pete have referred plumbing services to Dave? Very unlikely. Why? Context.
Let's say they walk by each other or see each other at a barbecue. Would Pete say, "Hey, Dave, just in case you're looking for a plumber, you should call Steve at Main Street Plumbing." No it would sound weird unless they were already talking about plumbing problems.
And even if Pete did tell Dave about Main Street Plumbing, it's unlikely Dave would remember because plumbing problems aren't top of mind at the moment the referral is given.
You can't predict when the situation will arise when the referral is needed. But you CAN improve the chances that when the situation DOES arise, someone will remember to refer you.
One way to increase the chance someone will remember you is using an information product that your referral source is likely to use regularly.
Like the calendar I mentioned at the beginning. And remember it wasn't just a calendar (because if it were it would be competing with the other six calendars vendors send me every year) it had useful information and tips so that I would use it regularly.
==============================
Tips for Creating Products That Will Get You More Referrals
==============================
1. Make sure your contact information is clear and easy to locate. This may seem obvious but I can't believe the number of times a business doesn't put its name and contact information on information products.
Always include your company name, your website address, your phone number, and a memory tag if you have one {"24-hour plumbing at your service")
2. Make sure you include useful, relevant information that your customers are likely to need at least once a month.
3. Make sure the information helps your customer solve a problem that you want referrals for.
Let's say every year Steve sends his customers a calendar with tips on simple maintenance tasks that will prevent plumbing disasters. Maybe two to three tips each month. Or he could do the same thing with a monthly newsletter.
==============================
Bottom Line
==============================
Don't hope customers will send you referrals. Create a simple, useful information product that will help customers remember you so that when your customer encounters someone who needs your help, they'll remember you and why they want to send you a referral.
About the Author:
Judy Murdoch helps small business owners create low-cost, effective marketing campaigns using word-of-mouth referrals, guerrilla marketing activities, and selected strategic alliances. To download a free copy of the workbook, "Where Does it Hurt? Marketing Solutions to the problems that Drive Your Customers Crazy!" go to http://www.judymurdoch.com/workbook.htm
You can contact Judy at 303-475-2015 or judy@judymurdoch.com
Copyright © 2009 Judy Murdoch
A couple weeks ago, my good friend and colleague, Mary Walewski sent me an email that contained a link and the short message, "thought this might interest you."
The link was to download a promotions planning calendar; a calendar that included specific steps to take each month around setting up online promotions.
The calendar was f'ree and simple to download. All in all a useful little tool.
And throughout the calendar are promotions for paid webinars the calendar's author is offering. Now I'm not interested in the webinars... at least not right now. But now I know they are available and I'll be looking at the calendar at least once a week and getting reminders.
This is a great example of how a small business can use information products as a way to generate referrals that lead to new customers.
This is something you can do in your own business. If you aren't you are missing an opportunity to help people send you referrals.
==============================
How Information Products Make It Easier for Customers to Refer Business to You
==============================
Small business owners love customer referrals and for good reason. Customer referrals are incredibly powerful because they are sincere, personal endorsements made because the person making the referral wants to look good to their peers. If the referral works out it's a win for everyone.
The Downside of Referrals is They're Unpredictable. No matter how much your customers love you, sending you a referral is simply not their first priority. Not because they don't think you're awesome and would like to help. Because there are hundreds of other things, some urgent, that compete for their attention.
The good news is that there are things you as a business owner can do to increases the chances your customers will remember to refer you. One way to improve those chances is by using information products.
==============================
How Information Products Improve the Chances of Getting Referrals
==============================
To give you a referral, your customer must remember you in the context of the problem you solve. What does this mean?
Here's an example:
Dave is new to town and just bought a house. He moved in a couple days ago and finds his hot water heater has sprung a leak. He needs to take care the leak quickly so the small puddle around his water heater doesn't turn into a small lake.
Dave calls his neighbor, Pete who has lived in the neighborhood for ten years and asks Pete to recommend a good plumber. Pete tells Dave to call Main Street Plumbing because Steve is great at figuring out problems, his rates are reasonable, and he makes emergency house calls.
Now here's how memorability and context work.
If Dave and Pete met under most circumstances, would Pete have referred plumbing services to Dave? Very unlikely. Why? Context.
Let's say they walk by each other or see each other at a barbecue. Would Pete say, "Hey, Dave, just in case you're looking for a plumber, you should call Steve at Main Street Plumbing." No it would sound weird unless they were already talking about plumbing problems.
And even if Pete did tell Dave about Main Street Plumbing, it's unlikely Dave would remember because plumbing problems aren't top of mind at the moment the referral is given.
You can't predict when the situation will arise when the referral is needed. But you CAN improve the chances that when the situation DOES arise, someone will remember to refer you.
One way to increase the chance someone will remember you is using an information product that your referral source is likely to use regularly.
Like the calendar I mentioned at the beginning. And remember it wasn't just a calendar (because if it were it would be competing with the other six calendars vendors send me every year) it had useful information and tips so that I would use it regularly.
==============================
Tips for Creating Products That Will Get You More Referrals
==============================
1. Make sure your contact information is clear and easy to locate. This may seem obvious but I can't believe the number of times a business doesn't put its name and contact information on information products.
Always include your company name, your website address, your phone number, and a memory tag if you have one {"24-hour plumbing at your service")
2. Make sure you include useful, relevant information that your customers are likely to need at least once a month.
3. Make sure the information helps your customer solve a problem that you want referrals for.
Let's say every year Steve sends his customers a calendar with tips on simple maintenance tasks that will prevent plumbing disasters. Maybe two to three tips each month. Or he could do the same thing with a monthly newsletter.
==============================
Bottom Line
==============================
Don't hope customers will send you referrals. Create a simple, useful information product that will help customers remember you so that when your customer encounters someone who needs your help, they'll remember you and why they want to send you a referral.
About the Author:
Judy Murdoch helps small business owners create low-cost, effective marketing campaigns using word-of-mouth referrals, guerrilla marketing activities, and selected strategic alliances. To download a free copy of the workbook, "Where Does it Hurt? Marketing Solutions to the problems that Drive Your Customers Crazy!" go to http://www.judymurdoch.com/workbook.htm
You can contact Judy at 303-475-2015 or judy@judymurdoch.com
Financial Management Of Your Expired Domains
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 John Khu
There are two important aspects that you should consider, while conducting expired domains trading business. Whatever buying and selling strategies you choose to conduct your domains expired trading business, the first real step that you must ensure is to manage the financial matters in a careful and well planned manner. Managing your finances is as critical as grabbing great expired domains. The most important goal here is to acquire the ability to play in the market by holding enough capital. In essence, a big cash asset will help you buy more valuable domains.
Raising enough capital to carry out your domain expiring trading activities depends entirely on your ability to infuse and import a sizeable amount of capital. There are several strategies and methods that will help you set up a sold financial base. Here are some tested and working methods using which you can raise the required capital:
Spending what you have in your wallet
This is possibly the most conservative method of spending your cash in a careful manner. When you start out, you may have very little cash in your wallet. Acquiring additional cash reserve at this juncture is rather very difficult. On the other hand, using your credit card to spend cash with very high interest could be counter-productive and negative. The best way to buy expired domains in the initial stages of your business is to use the money you have currently in your pocket. Never ever use money raised out of your credit card! Even when you buy domains-expired by using your credit card, ensure that you are paying off the debt as soon as possible. Otherwise, you will see your domain profits sinking with each passing day.
Raising capital with partnership and equity
Though no one likes to share the hard earned profits with other people, it may become imperative to seek additional funding from your friends, relatives and partners. With this additional cash reserve you can diversify your expired domain activities. However, you may need to return the money taken from other people along with a hefty interest rate. In case of dissolution of partnership agreement between you and your partners, you may need to pay back the money to your partners.
Using credit cards: A number of people use different credit cards to buy their expired domain names. Business credit cards that offer 0% APR seem to be the best type of credit cards; most of these cards also offer interest-free credit for 6 or more months. Another method of using credit card is to use a facility called balance transfer that will provide you some amount of interest-free credit for a certain period. However, using this type of cash could be very risky, when you consider its hefty interest rate and stiff pay back conditions.
Reinvesting method
Some miserly expired domain traders may resort to a technique called bootstrapping, when they reinvest their investments by selling domains-expired as soon as they buy them. Reinvesting is an intelligent money-saving technique that will also aim to pool and solidify cash assets in the long run. Bootstrapping is a careful technique that will allow domain traders to plan their purchases in a calibrated manner.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is also the owner of the path breaking web sites called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com and http://www.expireddomaingains.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
Copyright © 2009 John Khu
There are two important aspects that you should consider, while conducting expired domains trading business. Whatever buying and selling strategies you choose to conduct your domains expired trading business, the first real step that you must ensure is to manage the financial matters in a careful and well planned manner. Managing your finances is as critical as grabbing great expired domains. The most important goal here is to acquire the ability to play in the market by holding enough capital. In essence, a big cash asset will help you buy more valuable domains.
Raising enough capital to carry out your domain expiring trading activities depends entirely on your ability to infuse and import a sizeable amount of capital. There are several strategies and methods that will help you set up a sold financial base. Here are some tested and working methods using which you can raise the required capital:
Spending what you have in your wallet
This is possibly the most conservative method of spending your cash in a careful manner. When you start out, you may have very little cash in your wallet. Acquiring additional cash reserve at this juncture is rather very difficult. On the other hand, using your credit card to spend cash with very high interest could be counter-productive and negative. The best way to buy expired domains in the initial stages of your business is to use the money you have currently in your pocket. Never ever use money raised out of your credit card! Even when you buy domains-expired by using your credit card, ensure that you are paying off the debt as soon as possible. Otherwise, you will see your domain profits sinking with each passing day.
Raising capital with partnership and equity
Though no one likes to share the hard earned profits with other people, it may become imperative to seek additional funding from your friends, relatives and partners. With this additional cash reserve you can diversify your expired domain activities. However, you may need to return the money taken from other people along with a hefty interest rate. In case of dissolution of partnership agreement between you and your partners, you may need to pay back the money to your partners.
Using credit cards: A number of people use different credit cards to buy their expired domain names. Business credit cards that offer 0% APR seem to be the best type of credit cards; most of these cards also offer interest-free credit for 6 or more months. Another method of using credit card is to use a facility called balance transfer that will provide you some amount of interest-free credit for a certain period. However, using this type of cash could be very risky, when you consider its hefty interest rate and stiff pay back conditions.
Reinvesting method
Some miserly expired domain traders may resort to a technique called bootstrapping, when they reinvest their investments by selling domains-expired as soon as they buy them. Reinvesting is an intelligent money-saving technique that will also aim to pool and solidify cash assets in the long run. Bootstrapping is a careful technique that will allow domain traders to plan their purchases in a calibrated manner.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is also the owner of the path breaking web sites called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com and http://www.expireddomaingains.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
Friday, February 27, 2009
5 Little Mistakes That Will Affect Your Event Registration
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Jim Romanik
The last thing an event planner wants to do is to frustrate a potential participant with a difficult registration process.
If you currently use online forms to register for events or make purchases, it's more than likely you've come up against this and perhaps on occasion have even abandoned the task altogether?
When online registration is setup right, the advantages for both the event planner and the event participants are untold, but common mistakes can have a dramatic impact on the success of your event.
Here are five ways you may be accidentally frustrating your event participants.
Mistake #1: Confuse Registrants By Trying To Use Modified Shopping Cart Software To Collect Payments.
You can buy tools that claim to do the job of five different pieces of equipment, but in reality they only do a mediocre job on one task. The same idea applies to software.
Most online shopping cart software is designed for merchandise, with shopping carts, fields for shipping addresses and items that are referred to as products. Reports designed specifically to make the event planner's job easier don't exist.
Shopping cart software may work for your event registration, but it isn't the most professional solution and can cause your event participants to become frustrated trying to make sense of it all.
Mistake #2: Forget To Include Event Officials' Contact Information On The Form.
Online registration forms are self serve. If a form is well designed, the users should be able to take care of everything themselves, but sometimes there are still questions that need to be answered. If a person can't find a number to call to get an immediate answer, they will become frustrated. If a user has to click back to find a phone number and then loses all of the data they've entered expect a very unhappy caller.
Mistake #3: Make Divulging Personal Information Mandatory And Failing To Think Through "Validations".
Mandatory fields will help you get completed registration forms, but making people fill in details that aren't necessary for the event will cause frustration, especially if the information is private in nature. People will either abandon the form or enter bogus information, either way you lose.
Validation is where users are forced to enter postal or zip codes, phone numbers or other data in a certain format. It is a very powerful feature, but if you don't think of all the possible combinations such as extensions and country codes on phone numbers and postal and zip codes from other countries, you will frustrate people.
Mistake #4: Make Users Open An Account Before They Can Register.
The idea is to make things easier, so don't force people to register with a service, enter a password or jump through other hoops. There are advantages to users having accounts, such as recalling address information for future registrations, but no one needs another password to remember, especially when they are sick of giving out their information and just want to submit their registration.
Mistake #5: Make Event Participants Do The Math.
Surprisingly, there are still online registration forms out there that require users to do their own math. Not only should your registration form automatically do this for them, it should also adjust for early bird rates, provide member discounts and prevent users from making conflicting or invalid selections.
About the Author:
Jim Romanik - founder of ePly Online Event Registration Software (http://www.eply.com)
We are online registration experts and treat your reputation as our own to build registration forms that help your events succeed and make people wonder how you did it.
Download our Free Guide - "What Every Event Planner Should Know About Online Event Registration" at: http://www.eply.com/lp/articles.html
Copyright © 2009 Jim Romanik
The last thing an event planner wants to do is to frustrate a potential participant with a difficult registration process.
If you currently use online forms to register for events or make purchases, it's more than likely you've come up against this and perhaps on occasion have even abandoned the task altogether?
When online registration is setup right, the advantages for both the event planner and the event participants are untold, but common mistakes can have a dramatic impact on the success of your event.
Here are five ways you may be accidentally frustrating your event participants.
Mistake #1: Confuse Registrants By Trying To Use Modified Shopping Cart Software To Collect Payments.
You can buy tools that claim to do the job of five different pieces of equipment, but in reality they only do a mediocre job on one task. The same idea applies to software.
Most online shopping cart software is designed for merchandise, with shopping carts, fields for shipping addresses and items that are referred to as products. Reports designed specifically to make the event planner's job easier don't exist.
Shopping cart software may work for your event registration, but it isn't the most professional solution and can cause your event participants to become frustrated trying to make sense of it all.
Mistake #2: Forget To Include Event Officials' Contact Information On The Form.
Online registration forms are self serve. If a form is well designed, the users should be able to take care of everything themselves, but sometimes there are still questions that need to be answered. If a person can't find a number to call to get an immediate answer, they will become frustrated. If a user has to click back to find a phone number and then loses all of the data they've entered expect a very unhappy caller.
Mistake #3: Make Divulging Personal Information Mandatory And Failing To Think Through "Validations".
Mandatory fields will help you get completed registration forms, but making people fill in details that aren't necessary for the event will cause frustration, especially if the information is private in nature. People will either abandon the form or enter bogus information, either way you lose.
Validation is where users are forced to enter postal or zip codes, phone numbers or other data in a certain format. It is a very powerful feature, but if you don't think of all the possible combinations such as extensions and country codes on phone numbers and postal and zip codes from other countries, you will frustrate people.
Mistake #4: Make Users Open An Account Before They Can Register.
The idea is to make things easier, so don't force people to register with a service, enter a password or jump through other hoops. There are advantages to users having accounts, such as recalling address information for future registrations, but no one needs another password to remember, especially when they are sick of giving out their information and just want to submit their registration.
Mistake #5: Make Event Participants Do The Math.
Surprisingly, there are still online registration forms out there that require users to do their own math. Not only should your registration form automatically do this for them, it should also adjust for early bird rates, provide member discounts and prevent users from making conflicting or invalid selections.
About the Author:
Jim Romanik - founder of ePly Online Event Registration Software (http://www.eply.com)
We are online registration experts and treat your reputation as our own to build registration forms that help your events succeed and make people wonder how you did it.
Download our Free Guide - "What Every Event Planner Should Know About Online Event Registration" at: http://www.eply.com/lp/articles.html
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Jim Romanik
Have you ever registered or attempted to register for an event and spent half an hour trying to figure out what you needed to do? Or have you used an online registration form that lost your data or was so complicated that it seemed like more work than faxing the form?
When used properly, online registration is an extremely powerful tool that makes registration easy for event participants. If used improperly, event participants can be left extremely frustrated and in some cases reluctant to attend the event.
We have put together a list of ten design tips to help you create user friendly registration forms and give your event participants a positive registration experience.
1. Make the registration form easy to access
Make the link to the online registration form very obvious. Event participants may not be familiar with your website and will become frustrated if they have to hunt for the registration form. If you are sending a URL (web address) in printed material make the address as simple as possible so participants aren't entering a long string of characters. Also, only put a registration form in a password protected part of your website when absolutely necessary. People often forget their passwords, which will cause more frustration and possibly generate calls and emails to the event planner.
2. Make your form familiar and secure
Event participants need to be reassured that their data is secure. A good way to do this is to brand the online form to match your website. This way, the transition to the online from is seamless and event participants will remain comfortable with the process. Also, make sure that appropriate security icons such as the lock symbol in your browser appear when collecting credit card numbers.
3. Make the registration form clear and easy to use
A well laid out and visually appealing registration form encourages event participants to register. On the form, keep text to a minimum and make it clear what you want participants to do. Use logic to guide participants through the form and give warnings if something is wrong.
4. Have appropriate payment options
If you have a fee associated with your event, make sure the payment methods you offer are appropriate for the people registering. For example, large companies may require an invoice before a check can be issued and some groups of people may not have credit cards.
5. Make sure it works
There is nothing worse than entering all of your registration data and then getting an error when you click submit and losing the data. Before going live, be sure to test your form several times selecting all of the different options to be sure everything will work for the event participants.
6. Display your privacy policy
Many people are concerned about who will have access to their information and how it will be used. Make sure you have a privacy statement available on the online form to reassure participants that you are protecting their information.
7. Anticipate questions participants may have
Don't overload the form with information (tip 3), but have information on the form that you think may be useful when registering such as prices, dates or special instructions. It's inconvenient for participants to have to click back to search for the information on your website and in some cases clicking "back" will delete the data in a partially complete form.
8. Only request necessary data
The less information people have to provide the more comfortable they will be with the process and the quicker they will be able to complete the form. If you are asking for personal information such as birthdate it helps to add a note saying why you are requesting the information.
9. Don't over use mandatory fields
Mandatory fields help to get fully complete registration forms, but too many mandatory fields can frustrate an event participant. This is especially true if there is information that is not readily known such as the fax number for someone else in their group.
10. Avoid making participants sign up with another company before they can register for your event
Some online registration companies require that people registering for your events first sign up as a member with them. A system like this has its place, but many event participants will be turned off providing information to a third party.
A related article "Online Registration: Getting people to use it" is available on our website and offers some suggestions about how to get people to the online from in the first place.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments about this article.
About the Author:
Jim Romanik - founder of ePly Online Event Registration Software (http://www.eply.com)
We are online registration experts and treat your reputation as our own to build registration forms that help your events succeed and make people wonder how you did it.
Download our Free Guide - "What Every Event Planner Should Know About Online Event Registration" at: http://www.eply.com/lp/articles.html
Copyright © 2009 Jim Romanik
Have you ever registered or attempted to register for an event and spent half an hour trying to figure out what you needed to do? Or have you used an online registration form that lost your data or was so complicated that it seemed like more work than faxing the form?
When used properly, online registration is an extremely powerful tool that makes registration easy for event participants. If used improperly, event participants can be left extremely frustrated and in some cases reluctant to attend the event.
We have put together a list of ten design tips to help you create user friendly registration forms and give your event participants a positive registration experience.
1. Make the registration form easy to access
Make the link to the online registration form very obvious. Event participants may not be familiar with your website and will become frustrated if they have to hunt for the registration form. If you are sending a URL (web address) in printed material make the address as simple as possible so participants aren't entering a long string of characters. Also, only put a registration form in a password protected part of your website when absolutely necessary. People often forget their passwords, which will cause more frustration and possibly generate calls and emails to the event planner.
2. Make your form familiar and secure
Event participants need to be reassured that their data is secure. A good way to do this is to brand the online form to match your website. This way, the transition to the online from is seamless and event participants will remain comfortable with the process. Also, make sure that appropriate security icons such as the lock symbol in your browser appear when collecting credit card numbers.
3. Make the registration form clear and easy to use
A well laid out and visually appealing registration form encourages event participants to register. On the form, keep text to a minimum and make it clear what you want participants to do. Use logic to guide participants through the form and give warnings if something is wrong.
4. Have appropriate payment options
If you have a fee associated with your event, make sure the payment methods you offer are appropriate for the people registering. For example, large companies may require an invoice before a check can be issued and some groups of people may not have credit cards.
5. Make sure it works
There is nothing worse than entering all of your registration data and then getting an error when you click submit and losing the data. Before going live, be sure to test your form several times selecting all of the different options to be sure everything will work for the event participants.
6. Display your privacy policy
Many people are concerned about who will have access to their information and how it will be used. Make sure you have a privacy statement available on the online form to reassure participants that you are protecting their information.
7. Anticipate questions participants may have
Don't overload the form with information (tip 3), but have information on the form that you think may be useful when registering such as prices, dates or special instructions. It's inconvenient for participants to have to click back to search for the information on your website and in some cases clicking "back" will delete the data in a partially complete form.
8. Only request necessary data
The less information people have to provide the more comfortable they will be with the process and the quicker they will be able to complete the form. If you are asking for personal information such as birthdate it helps to add a note saying why you are requesting the information.
9. Don't over use mandatory fields
Mandatory fields help to get fully complete registration forms, but too many mandatory fields can frustrate an event participant. This is especially true if there is information that is not readily known such as the fax number for someone else in their group.
10. Avoid making participants sign up with another company before they can register for your event
Some online registration companies require that people registering for your events first sign up as a member with them. A system like this has its place, but many event participants will be turned off providing information to a third party.
A related article "Online Registration: Getting people to use it" is available on our website and offers some suggestions about how to get people to the online from in the first place.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments about this article.
About the Author:
Jim Romanik - founder of ePly Online Event Registration Software (http://www.eply.com)
We are online registration experts and treat your reputation as our own to build registration forms that help your events succeed and make people wonder how you did it.
Download our Free Guide - "What Every Event Planner Should Know About Online Event Registration" at: http://www.eply.com/lp/articles.html
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Easy Loans During the Current Credit Crunch
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Arlo Mooney
Everyone is talking about the difficulty of borrowing money right now during the current credit crunch. But I have learned from my unique experience that there is still money available to borrow, even in these current market conditions.
Consumer credit for auto loans and home mortgages is kind of scarce, because the major banks who have historically loaned this money are struggling under a mountain of bad loans.
Despite the contraction of consumer credit through the various nationwide banks, there are banks that are still loaning money to consumers. If you stop to think about the facts of this matter, what I am getting ready to tell you will make good sense.
The Banking Industry
There are hundreds of major banks which made loads of money during the last couple decades - banks that loaned money to pretty much anyone who filled out a credit application. These banks are now struggling with record bank loan defaults. As such, they do not currently have the economic strength to be able to loan money now. These troubled banks started tightening the reigns on their lending practices, when they realized how bad the situation had become.
Despite all of the bad news in the consumer credit industry, there is a lot of good news, but you will never hear the good news when reading the newspaper or watching your favorite news show.
See, while there were hundreds of major banks that loaned money to absolutely anyone who asked for it, there were also hundreds of other banks that did not diminish their credit standards, in order to loan money to people who could not afford to pay back the loan.
As a result, there are thousands of smaller banks and credit unions that have strong financial portfolios, permitting them to loan money freely during the current credit crunch.
So, if you need a loan right now for a car replacement, you should visit your local banker to see if they would be willing to loan you money for that purchase. You might just be surprised. I know that here where I live, there are at least three banks that would be willing to loan me money for the purchase of a new car, if I wanted to purchase a new car.
The Private Lending Industry
A friend of mine buys and sells homes for a profit. Of course the current economic conditions are good for his business in that there is a lot of opportunity to buy homes for a deeply discounted price. But as with any business, one needs to have access to capital to keep moving forward and to take advantage of opportunities when they come.
My friend talked to a potential investor this morning who told him that if my friend could provide him houses, then the investor could supply the purchase price of the home within 24 hours!
My friend has bought and sold nearly four dozen homes in the last six months, and his home investors have what seems to be an almost unlimited access to capital to invest in the homes he buys.
So while Wall Street and major banks struggle to provide money to borrowers, private lenders seem to have no problem getting the money they need to buy homes or anything else.
The Small Consumer Loan Industry
As I have demonstrated earlier in this article, the credit crunch is only affecting those banks and lenders which used bad judgment in their lending practices.
The cash advance payday loan industry has not been as foolish as the major banks have been, and that really says something. The cash advance payday loan industry loans money to absolutely anyone who walks through the door who has a job and a checking account. And yet, their books remain stronger than the books of some of the major banking institutions. This story is just dripping with irony, isn't it?
It might help that the cash advance payday loan companies charge a bit more money for a loan and that they loan smaller amounts of money for less time than the major banks do.
Although these loans are not for everyone, they are loans for people who have experienced a short-term cash shortfall. If you can afford to pay back your loan in two weeks, when the loan becomes due, then the payday loan company could provide to you much needed cash in your time of need.
Author's Note: This article was originally posted at
http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/current-credit-crunch/2009/02/
About the Author:
With Arlo Mooney's background in finance and economics, he strives to help people understand complex economic principles in simple terms. If you want to learn the inside story of the September 2008 economic collapse, read more at: http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/ But if you are looking for a payday loan, Arlo recommends http://www.fastcash4all.net/
Copyright © 2009 Arlo Mooney
Everyone is talking about the difficulty of borrowing money right now during the current credit crunch. But I have learned from my unique experience that there is still money available to borrow, even in these current market conditions.
Consumer credit for auto loans and home mortgages is kind of scarce, because the major banks who have historically loaned this money are struggling under a mountain of bad loans.
Despite the contraction of consumer credit through the various nationwide banks, there are banks that are still loaning money to consumers. If you stop to think about the facts of this matter, what I am getting ready to tell you will make good sense.
The Banking Industry
There are hundreds of major banks which made loads of money during the last couple decades - banks that loaned money to pretty much anyone who filled out a credit application. These banks are now struggling with record bank loan defaults. As such, they do not currently have the economic strength to be able to loan money now. These troubled banks started tightening the reigns on their lending practices, when they realized how bad the situation had become.
Despite all of the bad news in the consumer credit industry, there is a lot of good news, but you will never hear the good news when reading the newspaper or watching your favorite news show.
See, while there were hundreds of major banks that loaned money to absolutely anyone who asked for it, there were also hundreds of other banks that did not diminish their credit standards, in order to loan money to people who could not afford to pay back the loan.
As a result, there are thousands of smaller banks and credit unions that have strong financial portfolios, permitting them to loan money freely during the current credit crunch.
So, if you need a loan right now for a car replacement, you should visit your local banker to see if they would be willing to loan you money for that purchase. You might just be surprised. I know that here where I live, there are at least three banks that would be willing to loan me money for the purchase of a new car, if I wanted to purchase a new car.
The Private Lending Industry
A friend of mine buys and sells homes for a profit. Of course the current economic conditions are good for his business in that there is a lot of opportunity to buy homes for a deeply discounted price. But as with any business, one needs to have access to capital to keep moving forward and to take advantage of opportunities when they come.
My friend talked to a potential investor this morning who told him that if my friend could provide him houses, then the investor could supply the purchase price of the home within 24 hours!
My friend has bought and sold nearly four dozen homes in the last six months, and his home investors have what seems to be an almost unlimited access to capital to invest in the homes he buys.
So while Wall Street and major banks struggle to provide money to borrowers, private lenders seem to have no problem getting the money they need to buy homes or anything else.
The Small Consumer Loan Industry
As I have demonstrated earlier in this article, the credit crunch is only affecting those banks and lenders which used bad judgment in their lending practices.
The cash advance payday loan industry has not been as foolish as the major banks have been, and that really says something. The cash advance payday loan industry loans money to absolutely anyone who walks through the door who has a job and a checking account. And yet, their books remain stronger than the books of some of the major banking institutions. This story is just dripping with irony, isn't it?
It might help that the cash advance payday loan companies charge a bit more money for a loan and that they loan smaller amounts of money for less time than the major banks do.
Although these loans are not for everyone, they are loans for people who have experienced a short-term cash shortfall. If you can afford to pay back your loan in two weeks, when the loan becomes due, then the payday loan company could provide to you much needed cash in your time of need.
Author's Note: This article was originally posted at
http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/current-credit-crunch/2009/02/
About the Author:
With Arlo Mooney's background in finance and economics, he strives to help people understand complex economic principles in simple terms. If you want to learn the inside story of the September 2008 economic collapse, read more at: http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/ But if you are looking for a payday loan, Arlo recommends http://www.fastcash4all.net/
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Teleseminars: Eight Factors That Boost Their Perceived Value
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Marcia Yudkin
On average, teleseminars that charge a registration fee cost from $29.95 to $39.95. Generally, those running a teleseminar series simply multiply the number of sessions by a figure in the average range, then lower the total cost to a psychologically appealing price point. For example, a series of four teleseminars usually costs around $99 because $29.95 times 4 is $119.80.
However, if you're savvy about factors that boost the perceived value of teleseminars, you can charge many times more than the going rate. For instance, in the summer of 2008, I ran an eight-session teleseminar course for which I charged (and got) $997. A few months before that, I ran a four-session teleseminar course for which I charged (and got) $795. Do the math, and you'll see that I received up to five times the going rate.
Here's how you might be able to do the same. Add as many of the following factors as you can to your offering and watch people happily pay high enrollment fees.
Eight Factors That Boost The Perceived Value of Teleseminars
1. An outcome. Participants will pay much more for a teleseminar series that promises to deliver a result or outcome rather than merely offering education, insight or support. Compare "Start and Finish Your Nonfiction Book in 90 Days" or "Become an eBay Power Seller," which clearly aim at a specific result, with "Managing Difficult Employees," which is bound to be helpful but does not target an outcome.
2. Instructor's reputation. If the leader is well-known, impressively credentialed or highly respected by the target audience, the admission fee can go higher than for a no-name unknown.
3. Rarity of the class. For my $997 eight-session class, I told my list it was a one-time group version of my $2995 one-on-one training. Since I'm known to be a straight shooter, people wanted to take advantage of their one and only opportunity to learn the material from me for less than $1,000. If you offer your teleseminar course only once every two years, that's the next best thing to presenting it one time only - and also effective in boosting people's willingness to pay higher than usual fees.
4. Tangible materials. When you offer hard-copy printouts and CDs or DVDs along with your teleseminars rather than just telephone sessions and downloadable extras, the perceived value rises greatly. Most participants appreciate having a physical copy of your material rather than just a memory of the sessions and some files on their computer. The tangible materials also help assuage a participant's worry about not being able to attend all the sessions.
5. Consulting, coaching or mentoring component. Build some sort of one-on-one help or advice into your course, and you can charge lots more for your teleseminar or series. And guess what - surprisingly few participants take advantage of such an opportunity. Since they figure that's their own fault, they're still willing to pay the premium fee for something that makes one-on-one advice or feedback available.
6. Additional services. My four-session $795 teleseminar course included having me distribute a press release for them at no charge - a $149 value. Here I'm not suggesting simply piling on downloadable bonuses, which everyone knows cost next to nothing to deliver, but bundling in an extra service that would normally cost extra, such as free proofreading or free cover design for the participant in "Start and Finish Your Nonfiction Book in 90 Days."
7. Certification. Participants adore it when satisfactory completion of your program enables them to call themselves a certified something or other. Because this beefs up their credentials, they're happy to pay more for a program that includes certification.
8. Continuing education credit. In some industries, professionals have to earn a certain number of educational credits every year to keep their license current. If that applies to your area of expertise, investigate which organizations are in charge of determining which courses can count for such credits, then apply for includion in that program. The very same content is worth more to participants who can satisfy continuing education requirements by signing up with you.
Along with increasing the perceived value of teleseminar programs, the eight factors above strongly reduce refund requests, too. Now go back through the list and think about which elements you can incorporate to boost your teleseminar profits!
About the Author:
Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high- ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. To find out more about your teleseminar options, download a complimentary copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business or Your Cause," go to http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm . Discover how to plan, promote and deliver profitable teleseminars, whether you're an entrepreneur, business or health professional, nonprofit organization or corporate marketer.
Copyright © 2009 Marcia Yudkin
On average, teleseminars that charge a registration fee cost from $29.95 to $39.95. Generally, those running a teleseminar series simply multiply the number of sessions by a figure in the average range, then lower the total cost to a psychologically appealing price point. For example, a series of four teleseminars usually costs around $99 because $29.95 times 4 is $119.80.
However, if you're savvy about factors that boost the perceived value of teleseminars, you can charge many times more than the going rate. For instance, in the summer of 2008, I ran an eight-session teleseminar course for which I charged (and got) $997. A few months before that, I ran a four-session teleseminar course for which I charged (and got) $795. Do the math, and you'll see that I received up to five times the going rate.
Here's how you might be able to do the same. Add as many of the following factors as you can to your offering and watch people happily pay high enrollment fees.
Eight Factors That Boost The Perceived Value of Teleseminars
1. An outcome. Participants will pay much more for a teleseminar series that promises to deliver a result or outcome rather than merely offering education, insight or support. Compare "Start and Finish Your Nonfiction Book in 90 Days" or "Become an eBay Power Seller," which clearly aim at a specific result, with "Managing Difficult Employees," which is bound to be helpful but does not target an outcome.
2. Instructor's reputation. If the leader is well-known, impressively credentialed or highly respected by the target audience, the admission fee can go higher than for a no-name unknown.
3. Rarity of the class. For my $997 eight-session class, I told my list it was a one-time group version of my $2995 one-on-one training. Since I'm known to be a straight shooter, people wanted to take advantage of their one and only opportunity to learn the material from me for less than $1,000. If you offer your teleseminar course only once every two years, that's the next best thing to presenting it one time only - and also effective in boosting people's willingness to pay higher than usual fees.
4. Tangible materials. When you offer hard-copy printouts and CDs or DVDs along with your teleseminars rather than just telephone sessions and downloadable extras, the perceived value rises greatly. Most participants appreciate having a physical copy of your material rather than just a memory of the sessions and some files on their computer. The tangible materials also help assuage a participant's worry about not being able to attend all the sessions.
5. Consulting, coaching or mentoring component. Build some sort of one-on-one help or advice into your course, and you can charge lots more for your teleseminar or series. And guess what - surprisingly few participants take advantage of such an opportunity. Since they figure that's their own fault, they're still willing to pay the premium fee for something that makes one-on-one advice or feedback available.
6. Additional services. My four-session $795 teleseminar course included having me distribute a press release for them at no charge - a $149 value. Here I'm not suggesting simply piling on downloadable bonuses, which everyone knows cost next to nothing to deliver, but bundling in an extra service that would normally cost extra, such as free proofreading or free cover design for the participant in "Start and Finish Your Nonfiction Book in 90 Days."
7. Certification. Participants adore it when satisfactory completion of your program enables them to call themselves a certified something or other. Because this beefs up their credentials, they're happy to pay more for a program that includes certification.
8. Continuing education credit. In some industries, professionals have to earn a certain number of educational credits every year to keep their license current. If that applies to your area of expertise, investigate which organizations are in charge of determining which courses can count for such credits, then apply for includion in that program. The very same content is worth more to participants who can satisfy continuing education requirements by signing up with you.
Along with increasing the perceived value of teleseminar programs, the eight factors above strongly reduce refund requests, too. Now go back through the list and think about which elements you can incorporate to boost your teleseminar profits!
About the Author:
Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high- ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. To find out more about your teleseminar options, download a complimentary copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business or Your Cause," go to http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm . Discover how to plan, promote and deliver profitable teleseminars, whether you're an entrepreneur, business or health professional, nonprofit organization or corporate marketer.
The Law of Attraction Says: You're Always Right!
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Andrea Conway
The universe always agrees with you, and the Law of Attraction works perfectly every single time.
That's why, no matter what you believe, you're absolutely right.
If you believe you're not good enough to be successful in business, you're right.
If you believe you have to struggle and work hard all the time to get ahead, you're right.
Beliefs -- which are thoughts that you've had a longstanding habit of thinking -- eventually become your reality.
I know, I know -- you don't want to be overworked and unsuccessful.
No problem. Outgrown and outworn beliefs can simply be dropped at any time. We'll get to how in a moment. (Remember when you believed in the Tooth Fairy?)
But first, please, let it sink in that whatever reality you're living has been created by your beliefs. Accepting the connection between what you've been living and what you've been thinking is essential if you want Law of Attraction on your side.
Not really sure what you believe? Take a look at what you're living. It's always a match to what you believe.
Most of you have an abundance of blessings in your lives, and that's wonderful. You created that. Awesome!
Nearly all of you also have things going on that you'd like to change. You created those too. Awesome!
When you truly get it that you create it all, then you really know "the secret." It's the secret of who you really are. Not some lowly, powerless human struggling to get ahead. You are spirit, eternally creating, eternally evolving, eternally choosing.
As spirit you have the innate power to create anew and anew -- simply because you choose to.
What's the path to changing those old beliefs? Here are the steps.
(1) Identify an aspect of your business that you don't like. (Not enough income? Irritating, unappreciative customers? A hopelessly messy office?)
(2) Investigate to uncover the beliefs that created it. (Money is hard to get. No one understands the true value of my work. Neat people are boring conformists.)
(3) Acknowledge that what you've manifested was inevitable, given the beliefs you've been holding. Think about it -- how could you not have manifested the result you have, considering your habitual thoughts?
(4) Determine the new belief you now prefer. "I now prefer to believe in my talents and ability to attract success."
Note 1: Even though you probably won't fully accept the new belief yet -- and you have no idea how or when you will be able to accept it -- stating it begins to attract it to you.
Note 2: It doesn't work to affirm "I now believe in my talents." That would be a lie, as your circumstances have clearly shown that you do not hold that belief. You can't manipulate the Law of Attraction by wishing -- it accurately reads your vibration.
Note 3: But you can truthfully say, "I now prefer to believe in my talents." Or "I'm now willing to believe in my talents." Simply having the preference or the willingness is enough to start you attracting what you want!
You don't need to struggle against your old beliefs (it's a waste of effort). Just build your sense of possibility and optimism about the new beliefs you prefer.
About the Author:
Andrea Conway, M.Ed., C.C., is the law of attraction success mentor for solopreneurs and small business owners ready to make all the money they want at the business they love. Get an instant bonus e-report, "Fire Up Your Business Success Using the Law of Attraction," when you subscribe to her free e-zine at http://www.succcessfulselfemployment.com. You could qualify for a free 30-minute coaching session!
Copyright © 2009 Andrea Conway
The universe always agrees with you, and the Law of Attraction works perfectly every single time.
That's why, no matter what you believe, you're absolutely right.
If you believe you're not good enough to be successful in business, you're right.
If you believe you have to struggle and work hard all the time to get ahead, you're right.
Beliefs -- which are thoughts that you've had a longstanding habit of thinking -- eventually become your reality.
I know, I know -- you don't want to be overworked and unsuccessful.
No problem. Outgrown and outworn beliefs can simply be dropped at any time. We'll get to how in a moment. (Remember when you believed in the Tooth Fairy?)
But first, please, let it sink in that whatever reality you're living has been created by your beliefs. Accepting the connection between what you've been living and what you've been thinking is essential if you want Law of Attraction on your side.
Not really sure what you believe? Take a look at what you're living. It's always a match to what you believe.
Most of you have an abundance of blessings in your lives, and that's wonderful. You created that. Awesome!
Nearly all of you also have things going on that you'd like to change. You created those too. Awesome!
When you truly get it that you create it all, then you really know "the secret." It's the secret of who you really are. Not some lowly, powerless human struggling to get ahead. You are spirit, eternally creating, eternally evolving, eternally choosing.
As spirit you have the innate power to create anew and anew -- simply because you choose to.
What's the path to changing those old beliefs? Here are the steps.
(1) Identify an aspect of your business that you don't like. (Not enough income? Irritating, unappreciative customers? A hopelessly messy office?)
(2) Investigate to uncover the beliefs that created it. (Money is hard to get. No one understands the true value of my work. Neat people are boring conformists.)
(3) Acknowledge that what you've manifested was inevitable, given the beliefs you've been holding. Think about it -- how could you not have manifested the result you have, considering your habitual thoughts?
(4) Determine the new belief you now prefer. "I now prefer to believe in my talents and ability to attract success."
Note 1: Even though you probably won't fully accept the new belief yet -- and you have no idea how or when you will be able to accept it -- stating it begins to attract it to you.
Note 2: It doesn't work to affirm "I now believe in my talents." That would be a lie, as your circumstances have clearly shown that you do not hold that belief. You can't manipulate the Law of Attraction by wishing -- it accurately reads your vibration.
Note 3: But you can truthfully say, "I now prefer to believe in my talents." Or "I'm now willing to believe in my talents." Simply having the preference or the willingness is enough to start you attracting what you want!
You don't need to struggle against your old beliefs (it's a waste of effort). Just build your sense of possibility and optimism about the new beliefs you prefer.
About the Author:
Andrea Conway, M.Ed., C.C., is the law of attraction success mentor for solopreneurs and small business owners ready to make all the money they want at the business they love. Get an instant bonus e-report, "Fire Up Your Business Success Using the Law of Attraction," when you subscribe to her free e-zine at http://www.succcessfulselfemployment.com. You could qualify for a free 30-minute coaching session!
Is Government Working For You - Or Are You Working For Government?
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Fred Vanhoosen
The new Congress and President are hard-at-work trying to push through a new economic stimulus package. Our elected leaders are claim the stimulus package will cost $825 billion, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) - which is known for its accurate accounting - says that with interest costs, the package will actually cost $1.1 trillion.
To put the $825 billion into perspective, Glenn Beck suggested today that the government could give a $17,000 check to every American and the numbers would add up to the same amount of the new "stimulus" package.
We all know it - the government is not going to send any of "us" a $17,000 check in the mail. This stimulus is about helping political causes as opposed to helping the people who are suffering in a bad economy.
If the current stimulus package will cost us $17,000 each, then the TARP funds cost us the equivalent of $14,000, just a few months ago. Between the two stimulus packages, the government is spending at least $31,000 for every American in 2008-2009, and that number only accounts for the "emergency stimulus"; it does not even take into account the governments normal spending habits.
I don't know about you, but $31,000 is equal to more than half of what I earned last year.
If we believe in our leaders, we would be safe to assume that the government will not come to us to collect the full $31,000 they borrowed in our names. Instead, our leaders would have us believe that you and I will get a tax cut and "the rich" will pay all of that debt back to lenders. 95% of us will get a tax cut and the 5% who are rich will pay our tax bills for us. So every rich person will pay the tax bill for the 19 of us who are in the middle- and lower-income tax brackets.
If this is an accurate assessment of the cost of these two stimulus packages, then "the rich" will be responsible for an additional $589,000 each. If the rich are really those who make more than $250,000 per year, then I suspect that most of "the rich" people won't be able to pay off our debts for us. But what do I know... I am not a politician.
What Do I Know?
I will tell you what I do know. I do know that I cannot manage my own family's finances with the same fuzzy math that government uses to manage its money.
I know that if I only have $3500 per month to pay my bills with, then I only have $3500 per month to pay my bills with. I also know that if I can find a mortgage company to finance my next home purchase, at a monthly payment I can afford to make, then I can buy a home. I also know that if I can find a finance company, which will loan me the money to buy a car, I can buy a car on credit.
At every step in the process, I need to know that I can reliably make all of my payments; within the context of the money I will reliably earn every month.
When my income drops, I need to find something to cut from my monthly expenses. If I cannot afford something this month, then I will not be able to afford it next month either. Rather than to try to live beyond my means, I have to cut something from my monthly expenses, because in the end, I need to do what is best for my family.
If the cash shortfall is temporary, like when I need to pay the mechanic to fix my car, or my wife gets another speeding ticket, then I can look to a payday loan company to help me cover that short-term cash shortfall.
In my case, the cash advance or payday loan is cool to use, but only if I am using it to cover a smaller, unanticipated expense. On the other hand, if the cash shortfall is expected to last several months, like when I needed to pay out $1100 over several months to pay the transmission shop for the new transmission in my car, then I would never consider a payday loan. Instead, I would find something that I could do without for several months and then do without that item.
Why Is This A Difficult Concept For Politicians To Understand?
At all times, we do what we can to live within our means, If we need to borrow money, we only do so when we are reasonably sure that we can pay that money back. If we cannot afford to borrow the money, then we look for things in our budget that we can cut.
But our politicians will never do such things. Even cost-cutter Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cannot seem to figure out how to stop spending money. Experts are now suggesting that the State of California is only collecting 60 cents on every dollar it spends! OMG... Where does it end?
So, California is looking for money to borrow, and the federal government is borrowing money and printing money so that they can spend well beyond their means as well. And why are the politicians still spending money like this? Because we are in dire economic circumstances!
You and I cannot borrow our way to prosperity, so why would the politicians believe that the U.S. Government could borrow its way to prosperity?
If you ask me, it is because our elected officials are just plain stupid. They have decided that you and I exist so that we can take care of the needs of the government, instead of the government existing to take care of our needs.
"The rich" are not going to be able to afford to take care of all of the costs or our government, so in the end, you and I will be paying out of our very limited budgets to take care of the financial needs of our government. They have stopped working for us - now, we work for them. We just don't know it yet.
About the Author:
Fred Vanhoosen writes about the payday loan / cash advance loan industry. Occasionally, he feels compelled to comment on the financial habits of our government. To learn more about cash advance loan products, he recommends visiting the following website: http://www.fastcash4all.net/
Copyright © 2009 Fred Vanhoosen
The new Congress and President are hard-at-work trying to push through a new economic stimulus package. Our elected leaders are claim the stimulus package will cost $825 billion, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) - which is known for its accurate accounting - says that with interest costs, the package will actually cost $1.1 trillion.
To put the $825 billion into perspective, Glenn Beck suggested today that the government could give a $17,000 check to every American and the numbers would add up to the same amount of the new "stimulus" package.
We all know it - the government is not going to send any of "us" a $17,000 check in the mail. This stimulus is about helping political causes as opposed to helping the people who are suffering in a bad economy.
If the current stimulus package will cost us $17,000 each, then the TARP funds cost us the equivalent of $14,000, just a few months ago. Between the two stimulus packages, the government is spending at least $31,000 for every American in 2008-2009, and that number only accounts for the "emergency stimulus"; it does not even take into account the governments normal spending habits.
I don't know about you, but $31,000 is equal to more than half of what I earned last year.
If we believe in our leaders, we would be safe to assume that the government will not come to us to collect the full $31,000 they borrowed in our names. Instead, our leaders would have us believe that you and I will get a tax cut and "the rich" will pay all of that debt back to lenders. 95% of us will get a tax cut and the 5% who are rich will pay our tax bills for us. So every rich person will pay the tax bill for the 19 of us who are in the middle- and lower-income tax brackets.
If this is an accurate assessment of the cost of these two stimulus packages, then "the rich" will be responsible for an additional $589,000 each. If the rich are really those who make more than $250,000 per year, then I suspect that most of "the rich" people won't be able to pay off our debts for us. But what do I know... I am not a politician.
What Do I Know?
I will tell you what I do know. I do know that I cannot manage my own family's finances with the same fuzzy math that government uses to manage its money.
I know that if I only have $3500 per month to pay my bills with, then I only have $3500 per month to pay my bills with. I also know that if I can find a mortgage company to finance my next home purchase, at a monthly payment I can afford to make, then I can buy a home. I also know that if I can find a finance company, which will loan me the money to buy a car, I can buy a car on credit.
At every step in the process, I need to know that I can reliably make all of my payments; within the context of the money I will reliably earn every month.
When my income drops, I need to find something to cut from my monthly expenses. If I cannot afford something this month, then I will not be able to afford it next month either. Rather than to try to live beyond my means, I have to cut something from my monthly expenses, because in the end, I need to do what is best for my family.
If the cash shortfall is temporary, like when I need to pay the mechanic to fix my car, or my wife gets another speeding ticket, then I can look to a payday loan company to help me cover that short-term cash shortfall.
In my case, the cash advance or payday loan is cool to use, but only if I am using it to cover a smaller, unanticipated expense. On the other hand, if the cash shortfall is expected to last several months, like when I needed to pay out $1100 over several months to pay the transmission shop for the new transmission in my car, then I would never consider a payday loan. Instead, I would find something that I could do without for several months and then do without that item.
Why Is This A Difficult Concept For Politicians To Understand?
At all times, we do what we can to live within our means, If we need to borrow money, we only do so when we are reasonably sure that we can pay that money back. If we cannot afford to borrow the money, then we look for things in our budget that we can cut.
But our politicians will never do such things. Even cost-cutter Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cannot seem to figure out how to stop spending money. Experts are now suggesting that the State of California is only collecting 60 cents on every dollar it spends! OMG... Where does it end?
So, California is looking for money to borrow, and the federal government is borrowing money and printing money so that they can spend well beyond their means as well. And why are the politicians still spending money like this? Because we are in dire economic circumstances!
You and I cannot borrow our way to prosperity, so why would the politicians believe that the U.S. Government could borrow its way to prosperity?
If you ask me, it is because our elected officials are just plain stupid. They have decided that you and I exist so that we can take care of the needs of the government, instead of the government existing to take care of our needs.
"The rich" are not going to be able to afford to take care of all of the costs or our government, so in the end, you and I will be paying out of our very limited budgets to take care of the financial needs of our government. They have stopped working for us - now, we work for them. We just don't know it yet.
About the Author:
Fred Vanhoosen writes about the payday loan / cash advance loan industry. Occasionally, he feels compelled to comment on the financial habits of our government. To learn more about cash advance loan products, he recommends visiting the following website: http://www.fastcash4all.net/
Rewriting Articles For Increased Distribution Reach
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2006-2009 Trey Pennewell
Hey! I just figured out how to both promote my website and cut down on my workload. I know what I will do: instead of writing five articles a week to distribute, I will take a single article and change it slightly to produce five different "versions." What a great idea! I will change the title also, so that there are five different titles. Then, I will change the introductory paragraph a bit and alter my word choice a bit. Whew! That is going to be much easier than writing five separate and unique articles each week.
Now, if only it were that simple.
What is wrong with the idea of writing an article and revising it so that you can get five back links instead of one? Isn't this what has made the business of Private Label Reprints (PLRs) so popular? In theory, doing something like this could save a lot of time and generate a great deal of content. Then, you could send various editions of your article to different publishing websites. But...
Many Distributors Will Prevent Duplication
One of the problems with rewriting the same article is that many distributors have mechanisms in place to prevent the publication of both pieces. Article distributors do not do this to harm your business; in fact, these limits are in place to protect your career. If you take the time to write an informative and helpful article to generate traffic back to your site, you probably do not want someone plagiarizing your work. This is why article distribution services work to prevent people, even you, from publishing an article very similar to what you've written.
Instead of being frustrated with the distributors, we should in fact thank them for protecting our work. Some article distributors run a code that will test five strings of data against previously submitted articles; some only use one code to match against, but they all aim to prevent duplication of content.
If you don't use an article distributor-if you submit the piece on your own-then you don't need to worry about duplicate content, right? Wrong. Imagine being a Webmaster who runs a site that accepts article submissions. What are you going to think when you get five articles that are obviously the same, with only simple changes made? Do you think that, as a Webmaster, you would publish these articles or delete the authors from your list for safety purposes?
Webmasters and E-Zine publishers are looking for new and unique content that will provide their readers with useful information. When you revise an article and send it to them, you are not giving them the freshness they look for. In fact, you are likely to irritate your editors.
Credibility
Another reason not to submit a revised article is because it takes away from your credibility as a writer or expert. Let's say that a customer comes across one of your articles and loves it. This reader thinks, "Wow, the author knows what he is talking about, I will look for more of his work." The reader searches for you on the Internet and reads a few more of your articles, only to realize that it is the same information, altered only slightly. Do you think this reader will convert to a sale on your website?
More than likely, this reader will become frustrated because he or she was hoping to learn more about you and your services or product. Instead, they will see that your writings do not offer unique information. Imagine buying a book from a respected author. Imagine that, when the author puts out a new book, you buy it, only to realize that they've rehashed the same information for republication. Would you buy a third book from this author? Would the writer seem a credible, knowledgeable or trustworthy authority?
Revising the same article over and over again will likely end up hurting your business. There is nothing more embarrassing for an author than to be ousted (and rightly so) from a forum for plagiarizing, even if you are plagiarizing your own work.
Quality Over Quantity
There are many reasons why it is a bad idea to submit multiple, slightly altered versions of the same article for publication. If you struggle with writing five articles each week, then only commit to writing one or two and composing them to the best of your ability. It is far better to go for quality than quantity in the article reprint business. A customer will appreciate finding a few articles from you that offer new and fresh information rather than finding dozens written by you that effectively state the same thing.
If you want to achieve both quality and quantity, you may consider hiring a ghostwriter. This will keep you from facing the loss of respect and credibility that often results from rewriting a single article.
About the Author:
Trey Pennewell is a writer, who writes about online marketing. Learn more about our Pay For Performance SEO services at: http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html Trey also manages article approvals at the free article directory located at: http://www.techcentralpublishing.com/Category/marketing/83/1
Copyright © 2006-2009 Trey Pennewell
Hey! I just figured out how to both promote my website and cut down on my workload. I know what I will do: instead of writing five articles a week to distribute, I will take a single article and change it slightly to produce five different "versions." What a great idea! I will change the title also, so that there are five different titles. Then, I will change the introductory paragraph a bit and alter my word choice a bit. Whew! That is going to be much easier than writing five separate and unique articles each week.
Now, if only it were that simple.
What is wrong with the idea of writing an article and revising it so that you can get five back links instead of one? Isn't this what has made the business of Private Label Reprints (PLRs) so popular? In theory, doing something like this could save a lot of time and generate a great deal of content. Then, you could send various editions of your article to different publishing websites. But...
Many Distributors Will Prevent Duplication
One of the problems with rewriting the same article is that many distributors have mechanisms in place to prevent the publication of both pieces. Article distributors do not do this to harm your business; in fact, these limits are in place to protect your career. If you take the time to write an informative and helpful article to generate traffic back to your site, you probably do not want someone plagiarizing your work. This is why article distribution services work to prevent people, even you, from publishing an article very similar to what you've written.
Instead of being frustrated with the distributors, we should in fact thank them for protecting our work. Some article distributors run a code that will test five strings of data against previously submitted articles; some only use one code to match against, but they all aim to prevent duplication of content.
If you don't use an article distributor-if you submit the piece on your own-then you don't need to worry about duplicate content, right? Wrong. Imagine being a Webmaster who runs a site that accepts article submissions. What are you going to think when you get five articles that are obviously the same, with only simple changes made? Do you think that, as a Webmaster, you would publish these articles or delete the authors from your list for safety purposes?
Webmasters and E-Zine publishers are looking for new and unique content that will provide their readers with useful information. When you revise an article and send it to them, you are not giving them the freshness they look for. In fact, you are likely to irritate your editors.
Credibility
Another reason not to submit a revised article is because it takes away from your credibility as a writer or expert. Let's say that a customer comes across one of your articles and loves it. This reader thinks, "Wow, the author knows what he is talking about, I will look for more of his work." The reader searches for you on the Internet and reads a few more of your articles, only to realize that it is the same information, altered only slightly. Do you think this reader will convert to a sale on your website?
More than likely, this reader will become frustrated because he or she was hoping to learn more about you and your services or product. Instead, they will see that your writings do not offer unique information. Imagine buying a book from a respected author. Imagine that, when the author puts out a new book, you buy it, only to realize that they've rehashed the same information for republication. Would you buy a third book from this author? Would the writer seem a credible, knowledgeable or trustworthy authority?
Revising the same article over and over again will likely end up hurting your business. There is nothing more embarrassing for an author than to be ousted (and rightly so) from a forum for plagiarizing, even if you are plagiarizing your own work.
Quality Over Quantity
There are many reasons why it is a bad idea to submit multiple, slightly altered versions of the same article for publication. If you struggle with writing five articles each week, then only commit to writing one or two and composing them to the best of your ability. It is far better to go for quality than quantity in the article reprint business. A customer will appreciate finding a few articles from you that offer new and fresh information rather than finding dozens written by you that effectively state the same thing.
If you want to achieve both quality and quantity, you may consider hiring a ghostwriter. This will keep you from facing the loss of respect and credibility that often results from rewriting a single article.
About the Author:
Trey Pennewell is a writer, who writes about online marketing. Learn more about our Pay For Performance SEO services at: http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html Trey also manages article approvals at the free article directory located at: http://www.techcentralpublishing.com/Category/marketing/83/1
Monday, February 23, 2009
Interviewing an Expert For a Teleseminar? Avoid These Six Mistakes
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Marcia Yudkin
Recording and interviewing an expert on a topic that has value for a group of listeners is one of the quickest and easiest ways to create a saleable product. This sort of teleseminar can also help drum up interest in an upcoming event as a free preview call.
However, as someone who has been interviewed or interviewed others dozens of times and listened to scores more expert interviews, I've observed several pitfalls that can affect the quality of the product.
To end up with a recording people that people feel good about having paid for, avoid making the following mistakes when you interview experts, either during a live teleseminar with listeners on the line or when just you and the expert are on the line for later distribution of your conversation.
1. Talking too much. As the interviewer, you should be talking no more than 20 percent of the time. It's fine to offer occasional observations that add to and round out what the expert has said. But it's rude to both the expert and the listeners to horn in on his expertise by running off at the mouth. However much you also know about the subject at hand, your role is subsidiary here. Write the following two words in big letters in front of you as a reminder: SHUT UP. If you just can't be quiet, reverse your role and find someone to interview you.
2. Not introducing the expert. Some interviewers either say outright, "So-and-so needs no introduction" or act as if everyone listening knows the stature and credentials of the guest expert. Yet even people who paid to be on a call and presumably read your sales copy might not remember the expert's qualifications or might be new to the circles in which your expert is a living legend. Always provide at least a brief bio of the expert to set the context for your questions.
3. Gushing. It's painful to listen to someone who responds to every other point of the expert by praising him or her to the sky. Instead of flowery or overly emotional flattery, be sparing and specific in your praise. Rather than "Wow, that's another incredibly insightful point," for instance, you can say "That's something most gurus don't tell you," or "I would never have guessed that," or "I see I'm going to have to make some changes after we finish today's call." Let listeners make up their own minds about the value of the expert's savvy for them.
4. Lousy questions. Good questions are open-ended ones that call for an explanation, anecdote or perspective of some sort rather than a simple yes or no. Avoid multi-part questions, because inevitably one of the parts gets lost in the expert's answer, confusing or disappointing listeners.
5. Getting off track. As interviewer, you are responsible to keep the discussion on track. However interesting a side issue might be, you can't let it get in the way of what you advertised would be covered in the call. Good phrases for reining in a digression include "But to get back to our topic for tonight..." or "I'm not sure we have time to get into that. Do you have any more ideas about ___ [the central topic]?"
6. Not providing URLs. Sometimes during a preview call that is promoting an upcoming paid event, the expert mentions valuable information available on the expert's web site, but the interviewer fails to prompt the expert to provide the web address so listeners can access it. This gets listeners feeling like the interviewer cares only about the event selling out and not about helping listeners. Listeners deserve to receive sufficient information to follow up with the expert directly or check out his or her books or web site.
By following these guidelines, you provide a solid educational experience for listeners, treat your expert with respect and are positioned well to receive the payoff that you planned for the teleseminar project.
About the Author:
Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high- ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. To find out more about your teleseminar options, download a complimentary copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business or Your Cause," go to http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm . Discover how to plan, promote and deliver profitable teleseminars, whether you're an entrepreneur, business or health professional, nonprofit organization or corporate marketer.
Copyright © 2009 Marcia Yudkin
Recording and interviewing an expert on a topic that has value for a group of listeners is one of the quickest and easiest ways to create a saleable product. This sort of teleseminar can also help drum up interest in an upcoming event as a free preview call.
However, as someone who has been interviewed or interviewed others dozens of times and listened to scores more expert interviews, I've observed several pitfalls that can affect the quality of the product.
To end up with a recording people that people feel good about having paid for, avoid making the following mistakes when you interview experts, either during a live teleseminar with listeners on the line or when just you and the expert are on the line for later distribution of your conversation.
1. Talking too much. As the interviewer, you should be talking no more than 20 percent of the time. It's fine to offer occasional observations that add to and round out what the expert has said. But it's rude to both the expert and the listeners to horn in on his expertise by running off at the mouth. However much you also know about the subject at hand, your role is subsidiary here. Write the following two words in big letters in front of you as a reminder: SHUT UP. If you just can't be quiet, reverse your role and find someone to interview you.
2. Not introducing the expert. Some interviewers either say outright, "So-and-so needs no introduction" or act as if everyone listening knows the stature and credentials of the guest expert. Yet even people who paid to be on a call and presumably read your sales copy might not remember the expert's qualifications or might be new to the circles in which your expert is a living legend. Always provide at least a brief bio of the expert to set the context for your questions.
3. Gushing. It's painful to listen to someone who responds to every other point of the expert by praising him or her to the sky. Instead of flowery or overly emotional flattery, be sparing and specific in your praise. Rather than "Wow, that's another incredibly insightful point," for instance, you can say "That's something most gurus don't tell you," or "I would never have guessed that," or "I see I'm going to have to make some changes after we finish today's call." Let listeners make up their own minds about the value of the expert's savvy for them.
4. Lousy questions. Good questions are open-ended ones that call for an explanation, anecdote or perspective of some sort rather than a simple yes or no. Avoid multi-part questions, because inevitably one of the parts gets lost in the expert's answer, confusing or disappointing listeners.
5. Getting off track. As interviewer, you are responsible to keep the discussion on track. However interesting a side issue might be, you can't let it get in the way of what you advertised would be covered in the call. Good phrases for reining in a digression include "But to get back to our topic for tonight..." or "I'm not sure we have time to get into that. Do you have any more ideas about ___ [the central topic]?"
6. Not providing URLs. Sometimes during a preview call that is promoting an upcoming paid event, the expert mentions valuable information available on the expert's web site, but the interviewer fails to prompt the expert to provide the web address so listeners can access it. This gets listeners feeling like the interviewer cares only about the event selling out and not about helping listeners. Listeners deserve to receive sufficient information to follow up with the expert directly or check out his or her books or web site.
By following these guidelines, you provide a solid educational experience for listeners, treat your expert with respect and are positioned well to receive the payoff that you planned for the teleseminar project.
About the Author:
Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high- ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. To find out more about your teleseminar options, download a complimentary copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business or Your Cause," go to http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm . Discover how to plan, promote and deliver profitable teleseminars, whether you're an entrepreneur, business or health professional, nonprofit organization or corporate marketer.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
How to Backorder for a Domain Name - Part II
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 John Khu
As an expired domain trader looking for a good domain name, you may face a number of difficulties and challenges like fierce competition, lightening quick registration by your competitors and exorbitantly higher buying prices. To avoid all these hassles and to buy very good domain names, you can use a number of domain backordering models offered by well known backordering services. Here are some of the famous and recognized domain backordering models made available by backordering firms:
First Model that offers services by individual and separate registrars:
Some well-known registrars offer this model by refusing to delete the expiring domain name especially at stage 2. However, they may assign a particular domain name to an individual, who has paid the required fee to backorder the domain. Examples of registrars are: GoDaddy.com and eNom.com
Second Model that offers services with the help of Coordinated Registrars:
This model offers a single window, application point for backordering a domain by multi-registrars. You may need to submit a request through SnapName.com web portal which eventually works with the registrar of a particular domain just before the final deletion. Examples of registrars are: Network Solutions.
Third Model that offers services with the help of the Registry:
All of us know that VeriSign controls the registry and it has the power to guarantee that any domain names deleted at stage 2 is redistributed to an interested buyer, who has registered to VeriSign's much hyped Waiting List Service or WLS. Any ICAAN registered and approved registrars can offer this service. It offers you two distinctive parameters when compared to a standard registrar type of model.
a) First, registrars offer this to those people, who can opt to offer a particular domain to their customers,
b) Second, only the registry has the complete control over the domain names that reside in the third stage
Tip: If there are no pending backorder requests for any domains forwarded through WLS, the said domain name will advance to the fourth stage after which dedicated software can grab it for immediate purchase.
Fourth Model that offers services by using automated registration software:
You can capture those domains that pass the registry at sixth stage. Using good software, you can send electronic requests for registering a domain with the help of an ICAAN accredited registrar. However, this is perhaps the most famous model that poses you several challenges that concerns how quickly you are grabbing an expired domain name. With good software, you can post simultaneous requests at the same time.
Fifth Model that offers you service by using a Multi-model Strategy:
To enhance your chances of winning a good domain name, you may need to use all the above mentioned strategies and models by subscribing to respective services. However, a number of expired domain name traders are approaching VeriSign to use their WLS service to bypass the registrars, who always delete expiring domain names paid and registered through them, provided there is not backorder requests made against those domains. All these models require considerable amount of skills and dedication from you, before you can grab a good expiring domain name.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is also the owner of the path breaking web sites called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com and http://www.expireddomaingains.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
Copyright © 2009 John Khu
As an expired domain trader looking for a good domain name, you may face a number of difficulties and challenges like fierce competition, lightening quick registration by your competitors and exorbitantly higher buying prices. To avoid all these hassles and to buy very good domain names, you can use a number of domain backordering models offered by well known backordering services. Here are some of the famous and recognized domain backordering models made available by backordering firms:
First Model that offers services by individual and separate registrars:
Some well-known registrars offer this model by refusing to delete the expiring domain name especially at stage 2. However, they may assign a particular domain name to an individual, who has paid the required fee to backorder the domain. Examples of registrars are: GoDaddy.com and eNom.com
Second Model that offers services with the help of Coordinated Registrars:
This model offers a single window, application point for backordering a domain by multi-registrars. You may need to submit a request through SnapName.com web portal which eventually works with the registrar of a particular domain just before the final deletion. Examples of registrars are: Network Solutions.
Third Model that offers services with the help of the Registry:
All of us know that VeriSign controls the registry and it has the power to guarantee that any domain names deleted at stage 2 is redistributed to an interested buyer, who has registered to VeriSign's much hyped Waiting List Service or WLS. Any ICAAN registered and approved registrars can offer this service. It offers you two distinctive parameters when compared to a standard registrar type of model.
a) First, registrars offer this to those people, who can opt to offer a particular domain to their customers,
b) Second, only the registry has the complete control over the domain names that reside in the third stage
Tip: If there are no pending backorder requests for any domains forwarded through WLS, the said domain name will advance to the fourth stage after which dedicated software can grab it for immediate purchase.
Fourth Model that offers services by using automated registration software:
You can capture those domains that pass the registry at sixth stage. Using good software, you can send electronic requests for registering a domain with the help of an ICAAN accredited registrar. However, this is perhaps the most famous model that poses you several challenges that concerns how quickly you are grabbing an expired domain name. With good software, you can post simultaneous requests at the same time.
Fifth Model that offers you service by using a Multi-model Strategy:
To enhance your chances of winning a good domain name, you may need to use all the above mentioned strategies and models by subscribing to respective services. However, a number of expired domain name traders are approaching VeriSign to use their WLS service to bypass the registrars, who always delete expiring domain names paid and registered through them, provided there is not backorder requests made against those domains. All these models require considerable amount of skills and dedication from you, before you can grab a good expiring domain name.
About the Author:
John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is also the owner of the path breaking web sites called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com and http://www.expireddomaingains.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Escape the Web Wasteland
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Ty Shewmake
Ask a few friends with websites if they're site help them sell, and the answer is usually something along the lines of "some". Asked why their site fails to make a real difference in their business most have no idea why.
Digging deeper, most businesspeople fume at the mention of their Google and Yahoo rankings. They paid big bucks to get their website "just so", spent weeks of effort, then tossed it out into the wild and expected it to rank high in Google. A week or so later, they type in their business name, and voila, they have a #1 Google ranking! Success!
Well, not really... Truth is, soon they discover their shiny new site isn't bringing in any new business. What they don't know is their site's living in The Web Wasteland Land - a place where old and new websites go to die.
"All politics is local" - when Tip O'Neil said that he was describing Web search, too. What's this mean? It means that (almost) all web searches are geographical.
Let's take Sue, a Miami resident who wants to buy a new scooter. Invariably, Sue goes to Google, Yahoo, MSN, or her favorite niche search engine and types in the search term (you guessed it) "scooter".
After a few milliseconds the search engine presents Sue a page of listings for scooter companies - in Guatemala, Anchorage, and Dubuque. She also gets results listing .pdf files about scooter batteries, scooter videos - but nothing relevant to buying a scooter near her.
However, Sue searches again. This time she uses the phrase "scooter Miami". Voila! Now Sue gets more relevant scooter listings in Miami. Still, for some reason she doesn't see the scooter shop (Bill's Scooter Emporium) her uncle recommended, and unfortunately she can't remember their name.
That's because "Bill's Scooter Emporium" and many other Miami scooter retailers still won't show up - because they think they're scooter stores, while in fact they're really Miami scooter stores.
Simply put, the text on their website pages isn't saying scooter + Miami to the search engines.
The truth is, unless you're a national retailer or service provider, you probably serve people who seek your particular product or service within their local geographic area. Few people who need their car windows tinted are going to drive 300 miles to get it done. Whether you consider your business to be geographically focused or not doesn't matter, people who seek your product or service will want to buy it within a particular geography (Miami scooters) - and that's how they'll always search for it. They ARE geographically-focused, so you MUST be.
That's why your website must talk to the search engines in terms they understand. If your pages don't talk product + geography, your site's likely going to end up in The Web Wasteland Land - or at best, on the outskirts.
Going back to the Miami scooter example, Sue used "scooter + Miami" as her search term. Grossly oversimplified, search engines process her search looking for web pages with the strongest appearances of these two search words (how often they appear on a page and how close together they are), and serve them up to Sue ranked 1 to x zillion (high to low) based on that strength (and some other lesser factors).
So, if you're a scooter store in Miami and want to show up at #1 when Sue searches for you, the pages on your website need to contain some phrases like these:
You just can't find a better scooter in Miami...
Scooters for Miami...
The best scooters in Miami...
When you need a new scooter in Miami, call us...
Scooters for Miami, Dade County, and South Florida...
And so on...
The closer "scooter" is to "Miami", the better. The key is to demonstrate to Google and Yahoo a tight geographic and product (geo-product) linkage. You connect the product (scooters) with geography (Miami) to create a geo-product linkage the search engines then use to your advantage.
How do you know when your site is in The Web Wasteland land? Test it! The very best way to test you website visibility is to use a tool specifically-designed for the task. WebPosition, WebCEO, and others are available as are vendors who are more than willing to run the test for a fee. Short of that, write down some logical search phrases (geography + product) and search for yourself in Google, Yahoo, and your other favorite search engines.
Some example search phrases Bill's Scooter Emporium would use to test include:
Scooter Miami
Miami scooter
Scooter shop Miami
Miami scooter shop
Miami scooter dealer
Escaping The Web Wasteland. If your business shows on page 2, you've got work to do. If it shows up on page 3 (or is a no-show) - you're in The Web Wasteland. The key to breaking out of The Web Wasteland is to understand that there are three basic areas you need to address; your page text, META page descriptions, and META keywords.
1. Page text can be easily modified to achieve a geo-product focus by whoever maintains your website. And, if your business serves multiple geographies, you can include multiple phrases, or select pages to have a separate geo-focus (a Miami page, a Punta Gorda page, etc.).
2. META Descriptions are short paragraphs within the HTML code which describe the content of that particular web page. Though you never see that HTML on a page, if you right-click on the background of a web page and select "View Source", notepad will pop up with the underlying HTML code from the page. Using our scooter example you should expect to see something like this:
3. META keywords are words and phrases located within the HTML code at the top of most web pages that talk to search engines. Near the top you should see something like this (again, using our scooter example)
While there are dozens of additional tweaks and nuances which can help or hurt your search engine placement, these three areas can make a huge difference in how well you web pages and website shows up in a search engine. An experienced search engine optimization (SEO) company can get these right quickly, handle the endless additional nuances, and keep an eye on things on an ongoing basis.
However, whether you fix your site yourself or hire it done, you should constantly check (monthly at least) the placement of your site to make sure it stays out of The Web Wasteland Land.
Regardless of your product or service, it's clear that if you achieve a better tight geo-product linkage, over time Google, Yahoo and the other search engines will reward your work with increasingly better placement and more customers.
Leave your competitors in The Web Wasteland, and sell more today!
About the Author:
Learn more about how the Web can help you sell more. Visit Ty Shewmake at http://www.www.RetailSalesSystems.com Retail Sales Systems helps small and medium B2B and B2C businesses create the perfect storm of e-sales success using the web, SEO, drip and nurture, and more. We specialize in implementing world-class ACT and http://www.SalesForce.com drip marketing systems.
Copyright © 2009 Ty Shewmake
Ask a few friends with websites if they're site help them sell, and the answer is usually something along the lines of "some". Asked why their site fails to make a real difference in their business most have no idea why.
Digging deeper, most businesspeople fume at the mention of their Google and Yahoo rankings. They paid big bucks to get their website "just so", spent weeks of effort, then tossed it out into the wild and expected it to rank high in Google. A week or so later, they type in their business name, and voila, they have a #1 Google ranking! Success!
Well, not really... Truth is, soon they discover their shiny new site isn't bringing in any new business. What they don't know is their site's living in The Web Wasteland Land - a place where old and new websites go to die.
"All politics is local" - when Tip O'Neil said that he was describing Web search, too. What's this mean? It means that (almost) all web searches are geographical.
Let's take Sue, a Miami resident who wants to buy a new scooter. Invariably, Sue goes to Google, Yahoo, MSN, or her favorite niche search engine and types in the search term (you guessed it) "scooter".
After a few milliseconds the search engine presents Sue a page of listings for scooter companies - in Guatemala, Anchorage, and Dubuque. She also gets results listing .pdf files about scooter batteries, scooter videos - but nothing relevant to buying a scooter near her.
However, Sue searches again. This time she uses the phrase "scooter Miami". Voila! Now Sue gets more relevant scooter listings in Miami. Still, for some reason she doesn't see the scooter shop (Bill's Scooter Emporium) her uncle recommended, and unfortunately she can't remember their name.
That's because "Bill's Scooter Emporium" and many other Miami scooter retailers still won't show up - because they think they're scooter stores, while in fact they're really Miami scooter stores.
Simply put, the text on their website pages isn't saying scooter + Miami to the search engines.
The truth is, unless you're a national retailer or service provider, you probably serve people who seek your particular product or service within their local geographic area. Few people who need their car windows tinted are going to drive 300 miles to get it done. Whether you consider your business to be geographically focused or not doesn't matter, people who seek your product or service will want to buy it within a particular geography (Miami scooters) - and that's how they'll always search for it. They ARE geographically-focused, so you MUST be.
That's why your website must talk to the search engines in terms they understand. If your pages don't talk product + geography, your site's likely going to end up in The Web Wasteland Land - or at best, on the outskirts.
Going back to the Miami scooter example, Sue used "scooter + Miami" as her search term. Grossly oversimplified, search engines process her search looking for web pages with the strongest appearances of these two search words (how often they appear on a page and how close together they are), and serve them up to Sue ranked 1 to x zillion (high to low) based on that strength (and some other lesser factors).
So, if you're a scooter store in Miami and want to show up at #1 when Sue searches for you, the pages on your website need to contain some phrases like these:
The closer "scooter" is to "Miami", the better. The key is to demonstrate to Google and Yahoo a tight geographic and product (geo-product) linkage. You connect the product (scooters) with geography (Miami) to create a geo-product linkage the search engines then use to your advantage.
How do you know when your site is in The Web Wasteland land? Test it! The very best way to test you website visibility is to use a tool specifically-designed for the task. WebPosition, WebCEO, and others are available as are vendors who are more than willing to run the test for a fee. Short of that, write down some logical search phrases (geography + product) and search for yourself in Google, Yahoo, and your other favorite search engines.
Some example search phrases Bill's Scooter Emporium would use to test include:
Escaping The Web Wasteland. If your business shows on page 2, you've got work to do. If it shows up on page 3 (or is a no-show) - you're in The Web Wasteland. The key to breaking out of The Web Wasteland is to understand that there are three basic areas you need to address; your page text, META page descriptions, and META keywords.
1. Page text can be easily modified to achieve a geo-product focus by whoever maintains your website. And, if your business serves multiple geographies, you can include multiple phrases, or select pages to have a separate geo-focus (a Miami page, a Punta Gorda page, etc.).
2. META Descriptions are short paragraphs within the HTML code which describe the content of that particular web page. Though you never see that HTML on a page, if you right-click on the background of a web page and select "View Source", notepad will pop up with the underlying HTML code from the page. Using our scooter example you should expect to see something like this:
3. META keywords are words and phrases located within the HTML code at the top of most web pages that talk to search engines. Near the top you should see something like this (again, using our scooter example)
While there are dozens of additional tweaks and nuances which can help or hurt your search engine placement, these three areas can make a huge difference in how well you web pages and website shows up in a search engine. An experienced search engine optimization (SEO) company can get these right quickly, handle the endless additional nuances, and keep an eye on things on an ongoing basis.
However, whether you fix your site yourself or hire it done, you should constantly check (monthly at least) the placement of your site to make sure it stays out of The Web Wasteland Land.
Regardless of your product or service, it's clear that if you achieve a better tight geo-product linkage, over time Google, Yahoo and the other search engines will reward your work with increasingly better placement and more customers.
Leave your competitors in The Web Wasteland, and sell more today!
About the Author:
Learn more about how the Web can help you sell more. Visit Ty Shewmake at http://www.www.RetailSalesSystems.com Retail Sales Systems helps small and medium B2B and B2C businesses create the perfect storm of e-sales success using the web, SEO, drip and nurture, and more. We specialize in implementing world-class ACT and http://www.SalesForce.com drip marketing systems.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Why You Should Archive Your Ezines and Newsletters Online
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2005-2009 Trey Pennewell
As a publisher of ezines and newsletters, you know that customers always want more from your services. One way to provide customers a good service while increasing your search engine rankings is to place your ezine archives online. By placing these online, you are giving your readers a value-added service that will set you apart from other ezines and newsletters. Not only will this provide value to your customers, but also by placing your archives online, the search engine spiders are able to "see" your unique combination of content. Ultimately, having your ezine archives online will give you higher search rankings and additional keyword phrase variations that everyone so desperately wants.
There are some things to consider when making the decision to put your newsletter archives online.
The first consideration is whether or not your ezine model is a paid subscription or a free subscription. If your ezine is a pay subscription, you probably do not want to place all of your archives online where someone can access them for free. If you were to do this there would be no need for readers to actually pay for a subscription. However, you may want to consider placing a couple of archived issues on a website, so that potential customers and advertisers can see what it is your publication has to offer them. Then, you can keep your remaining archives in a member's only website that is only accessible to your paying subscribers.
If you offer a free ezine or newsletter, there is little reason not to offer all of your archives for free online. The reason that people will want to go ahead and subscribe to your ezine or newsletter is that they can get the issue as soon as it comes out. You may want to consider only offering archives online that are at least a few months old. In other words, do not offer this month's issue in the archive for a few more months, so that people will still want to subscribe to your publication to see it when it is first made available.
Search engine spiders love content on websites. Not only do spiders like the generic content, but they really like valuable content such as articles. Quality content is one of the primary things that search engines look for when providing rankings and the level of importance of a website. The articles that are included in your archive will boost your search engine ranking. Having a higher search engine ranking means that potential subscribers are able to find you much easier. Being easy to find and offering a service such as free ezine with archives gives potential subscribers many reasons to choose your ezine or newsletter to land in their email box over your competitors.
Having your publications placed in an online archive will automatically provide you with a good amount of keyword optimization. For example, if you are publishing an ezine that mainly talks about home improvement, there is a high likelihood that many of the articles in your publication will contain the words "home improvement". Now when a potential subscriber searches on the Internet for "home improvement," they are much more likely to be directed to your website and learn that you provide a valuable subscription on this very topic. If you do not have your archives online, chances of picking up these new visitors and subscribers are greatly diminished.
Simply put, having your newsletter archives online is probably the easiest way to increase your exposure in the search engines and the easiest way to increase your ezine's subscriber base for free. It is very inexpensive to provide your archives online, and it can improve your subscriber's experience, letting him or her feel good about the service that you are providing to them.
People may have a desire to read your publication, but your ezine can easily get overlooked due to the excessive number of publications currently arriving in the subscriber's email box. A day will come when an individual feels overwhelmed by the number of publications arriving in their mailbox each day or week. When this starts to happen, they start canceling subscriptions because it is simply too much hassle to go through and delete these newsletters and ezines every week or every month. I have found myself in that position, so I eliminated the ones that bored me and only kept one or two subscriptions that really seemed to offer me the quality content that I wanted in an easy-to-read format. It was getting to be annoying to go through my email on a regular basis to filter out the excess ezines and newsletters that I did not read anyway.
So if you want to set yourself apart from your competitors and offer this value-added service to your customers, you seriously need to consider placing your archives online. It is likely that you will be surprised at the change in your search engine rankings as well. Again, if you provide a pay subscription do consider offering a few issues in a free archive, so that you can at least show potential subscribers and advertisers the quality of the product you provide.
Follow my advice, and down the road, you will be able to generate more income from your newsletter, because you will have a much larger list of subscribers to count as your own.
About the Author:
Trey Pennewell is a writer, who writes about online marketing. Learn more about our Pay For Results SEO services at: http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html Trey also manages article approvals at the free article directory located at: http://www.techcentralpublishing.com
Copyright © 2005-2009 Trey Pennewell
As a publisher of ezines and newsletters, you know that customers always want more from your services. One way to provide customers a good service while increasing your search engine rankings is to place your ezine archives online. By placing these online, you are giving your readers a value-added service that will set you apart from other ezines and newsletters. Not only will this provide value to your customers, but also by placing your archives online, the search engine spiders are able to "see" your unique combination of content. Ultimately, having your ezine archives online will give you higher search rankings and additional keyword phrase variations that everyone so desperately wants.
There are some things to consider when making the decision to put your newsletter archives online.
The first consideration is whether or not your ezine model is a paid subscription or a free subscription. If your ezine is a pay subscription, you probably do not want to place all of your archives online where someone can access them for free. If you were to do this there would be no need for readers to actually pay for a subscription. However, you may want to consider placing a couple of archived issues on a website, so that potential customers and advertisers can see what it is your publication has to offer them. Then, you can keep your remaining archives in a member's only website that is only accessible to your paying subscribers.
If you offer a free ezine or newsletter, there is little reason not to offer all of your archives for free online. The reason that people will want to go ahead and subscribe to your ezine or newsletter is that they can get the issue as soon as it comes out. You may want to consider only offering archives online that are at least a few months old. In other words, do not offer this month's issue in the archive for a few more months, so that people will still want to subscribe to your publication to see it when it is first made available.
Search engine spiders love content on websites. Not only do spiders like the generic content, but they really like valuable content such as articles. Quality content is one of the primary things that search engines look for when providing rankings and the level of importance of a website. The articles that are included in your archive will boost your search engine ranking. Having a higher search engine ranking means that potential subscribers are able to find you much easier. Being easy to find and offering a service such as free ezine with archives gives potential subscribers many reasons to choose your ezine or newsletter to land in their email box over your competitors.
Having your publications placed in an online archive will automatically provide you with a good amount of keyword optimization. For example, if you are publishing an ezine that mainly talks about home improvement, there is a high likelihood that many of the articles in your publication will contain the words "home improvement". Now when a potential subscriber searches on the Internet for "home improvement," they are much more likely to be directed to your website and learn that you provide a valuable subscription on this very topic. If you do not have your archives online, chances of picking up these new visitors and subscribers are greatly diminished.
Simply put, having your newsletter archives online is probably the easiest way to increase your exposure in the search engines and the easiest way to increase your ezine's subscriber base for free. It is very inexpensive to provide your archives online, and it can improve your subscriber's experience, letting him or her feel good about the service that you are providing to them.
People may have a desire to read your publication, but your ezine can easily get overlooked due to the excessive number of publications currently arriving in the subscriber's email box. A day will come when an individual feels overwhelmed by the number of publications arriving in their mailbox each day or week. When this starts to happen, they start canceling subscriptions because it is simply too much hassle to go through and delete these newsletters and ezines every week or every month. I have found myself in that position, so I eliminated the ones that bored me and only kept one or two subscriptions that really seemed to offer me the quality content that I wanted in an easy-to-read format. It was getting to be annoying to go through my email on a regular basis to filter out the excess ezines and newsletters that I did not read anyway.
So if you want to set yourself apart from your competitors and offer this value-added service to your customers, you seriously need to consider placing your archives online. It is likely that you will be surprised at the change in your search engine rankings as well. Again, if you provide a pay subscription do consider offering a few issues in a free archive, so that you can at least show potential subscribers and advertisers the quality of the product you provide.
Follow my advice, and down the road, you will be able to generate more income from your newsletter, because you will have a much larger list of subscribers to count as your own.
About the Author:
Trey Pennewell is a writer, who writes about online marketing. Learn more about our Pay For Results SEO services at: http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html Trey also manages article approvals at the free article directory located at: http://www.techcentralpublishing.com
Sunday, February 15, 2009
A Cheating Spouse Is Easily Caught
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Donny Prentice
If you suspect that your spouse is cheating on you, then your suspicions are probably right, but you should be forewarned that your friends and family are probably going to assure you that it is all in your head. It is not that your friends and family like seeing you as the butt of all jokes, but rather, most people simply cannot see the truth even when they are staring it in the face.
The cheater is well practiced in the art of deception, so he or she will be deceiving your friends and family as he or she is also trying to deceive you. Frequently with years of experience at his or her back, the deception is almost too easy for the cheater to achieve. People trust them, and that makes the deception much easier to hide.
Different Levels Of Cheating
Not all cheating involves physical contact. For some people, the very act of carrying an emotional relationship with another is cheating enough to bring a relationship to an end.
Just the other day, I found myself counseling a friend on this very issue. During his unemployment, he took to setting up a profile on an online dating website, and then asked me my thoughts on whether he should meet the woman with whom he was chatting.
My advice was pretty straight forward, although two-fold. On the first piece of advice, I had to warn him that some people he might meet online are not real; many of the people one might meet online are scammers hoping to have him send his hard earned money to them. On the second step, I advised that just chatting with another woman was tantamount to cheating and could lead to his divorce. I suggested that he should be certain that he is willing to risk his marriage on such an unknown as someone he met on the Internet.
I told him that if his wife found out that he was chatting up other women online, it would not matter if he had actually met any of those women in person. Emotional cheating is just as bad as real cheating, because one often leads to the other.
He has cheated in previous relationships, so this is not new territory for him. But he has remained in his current marriage for more than ten years without ever straying from his wife. I had always wondered why this woman was different than the rest; I wondered why he would cheat on all the others, but not this one. I still don't know the answer to that question - but times are changing, and unemployment has put him on the prowl.
The Cheater Always Makes Mistakes
The most common mistakes made by the cheater are spurred by overconfidence in their ability to hide the truth. As the cheater successfully hides the truth over a significant amount of time, the cheater will start to feel as if he or she can relax the level of his or her careful deceit. It is this relaxed attitude that most often betrays the betrayer.
A carelessly left receipt or an unexplained debit on the checking account often leads a deceived spouse to the truth. Stains on clothing and unexplainable absences also lead the deceiver into the light of day.
Whatever signs, signals or evidence may have led you to decide that your spouse is cheating should never prompt a direct confrontation. When you have finally realized the truth of the situation, you should take a breath, relax, and start making plans.
If you confront the cheater, chances are that the lies will continue and the cheater will play the role of the victim. It is part of their shtick. To ratchet up their defense against your accusations, they will trick your friends and family in helping them portray him or her self as the victim and you as the offender.
So now is not the time for confrontation; instead, it is time to get an education.
There are ways that you can catch a cheating spouse in such a way that the evidence you bring will stand up in court. If divorce is in your future, having proof that will withstand the evidentiary proceedings of a courtroom will be essential to your success in divorce court.
Not everyone will seek a divorce upon the revelation of a cheating spouse. Each person has different reasons for the choices they make. For better or for worse, my mother did not divorce my father until 14 years after he first got caught cheating on her. And when the divorce finally came, it came because he suspected her of cheating on him. Go figure.
For an accusation of cheating to mean anything at all in a court of law, one needs to have irrefutable evidence of cheating. Suspicion is no good in court - you need proof.
Get Real Proof, Before Confronting The Cheater
If you are cautious and wise, you can get the proof you need to prove your spouse guilty of cheating. Private investigators and police agencies have honed their investigative skills over years and can develop the kind of evidence that you need to support you when you confront your spouse or bring your spouse to court.
When a cheater is confronted with irrefutable proof, there will be no excuses to be heard. The cheater - when confronted with proof beyond a reasonable doubt - will usually crumble immediately, with his or her cheater's facade shattered in an instant.
By bringing proof to the confrontation, you will put yourself into the driver's seat to get whatever it is that you seek. You might want a divorce after confrontation, but then you might just want to get your significant other under control or to take actions to save your marriage. Either way, confronting the cheater with proof will put you in charge of the outcome.
Get educated to the ways of investigators, so that you can bring your suspicions into the light of day in such a way as to avoid permitting your spouse to play the victim game with you and your friends.
About the Author:
Donny Prentice writes about divorce and relationships. To find out more specific advice about how to catch a cheating spouse, visit http://www.divorcethinktank.com/discovercheaters/ If you are looking for advice to help you through the divorce process, our website provides helpful divorce advice for both men and women, facing divorce: http://www.divorcethinktank.com/blog/
Copyright © 2009 Donny Prentice
If you suspect that your spouse is cheating on you, then your suspicions are probably right, but you should be forewarned that your friends and family are probably going to assure you that it is all in your head. It is not that your friends and family like seeing you as the butt of all jokes, but rather, most people simply cannot see the truth even when they are staring it in the face.
The cheater is well practiced in the art of deception, so he or she will be deceiving your friends and family as he or she is also trying to deceive you. Frequently with years of experience at his or her back, the deception is almost too easy for the cheater to achieve. People trust them, and that makes the deception much easier to hide.
Different Levels Of Cheating
Not all cheating involves physical contact. For some people, the very act of carrying an emotional relationship with another is cheating enough to bring a relationship to an end.
Just the other day, I found myself counseling a friend on this very issue. During his unemployment, he took to setting up a profile on an online dating website, and then asked me my thoughts on whether he should meet the woman with whom he was chatting.
My advice was pretty straight forward, although two-fold. On the first piece of advice, I had to warn him that some people he might meet online are not real; many of the people one might meet online are scammers hoping to have him send his hard earned money to them. On the second step, I advised that just chatting with another woman was tantamount to cheating and could lead to his divorce. I suggested that he should be certain that he is willing to risk his marriage on such an unknown as someone he met on the Internet.
I told him that if his wife found out that he was chatting up other women online, it would not matter if he had actually met any of those women in person. Emotional cheating is just as bad as real cheating, because one often leads to the other.
He has cheated in previous relationships, so this is not new territory for him. But he has remained in his current marriage for more than ten years without ever straying from his wife. I had always wondered why this woman was different than the rest; I wondered why he would cheat on all the others, but not this one. I still don't know the answer to that question - but times are changing, and unemployment has put him on the prowl.
The Cheater Always Makes Mistakes
The most common mistakes made by the cheater are spurred by overconfidence in their ability to hide the truth. As the cheater successfully hides the truth over a significant amount of time, the cheater will start to feel as if he or she can relax the level of his or her careful deceit. It is this relaxed attitude that most often betrays the betrayer.
A carelessly left receipt or an unexplained debit on the checking account often leads a deceived spouse to the truth. Stains on clothing and unexplainable absences also lead the deceiver into the light of day.
Whatever signs, signals or evidence may have led you to decide that your spouse is cheating should never prompt a direct confrontation. When you have finally realized the truth of the situation, you should take a breath, relax, and start making plans.
If you confront the cheater, chances are that the lies will continue and the cheater will play the role of the victim. It is part of their shtick. To ratchet up their defense against your accusations, they will trick your friends and family in helping them portray him or her self as the victim and you as the offender.
So now is not the time for confrontation; instead, it is time to get an education.
There are ways that you can catch a cheating spouse in such a way that the evidence you bring will stand up in court. If divorce is in your future, having proof that will withstand the evidentiary proceedings of a courtroom will be essential to your success in divorce court.
Not everyone will seek a divorce upon the revelation of a cheating spouse. Each person has different reasons for the choices they make. For better or for worse, my mother did not divorce my father until 14 years after he first got caught cheating on her. And when the divorce finally came, it came because he suspected her of cheating on him. Go figure.
For an accusation of cheating to mean anything at all in a court of law, one needs to have irrefutable evidence of cheating. Suspicion is no good in court - you need proof.
Get Real Proof, Before Confronting The Cheater
If you are cautious and wise, you can get the proof you need to prove your spouse guilty of cheating. Private investigators and police agencies have honed their investigative skills over years and can develop the kind of evidence that you need to support you when you confront your spouse or bring your spouse to court.
When a cheater is confronted with irrefutable proof, there will be no excuses to be heard. The cheater - when confronted with proof beyond a reasonable doubt - will usually crumble immediately, with his or her cheater's facade shattered in an instant.
By bringing proof to the confrontation, you will put yourself into the driver's seat to get whatever it is that you seek. You might want a divorce after confrontation, but then you might just want to get your significant other under control or to take actions to save your marriage. Either way, confronting the cheater with proof will put you in charge of the outcome.
Get educated to the ways of investigators, so that you can bring your suspicions into the light of day in such a way as to avoid permitting your spouse to play the victim game with you and your friends.
About the Author:
Donny Prentice writes about divorce and relationships. To find out more specific advice about how to catch a cheating spouse, visit http://www.divorcethinktank.com/discovercheaters/ If you are looking for advice to help you through the divorce process, our website provides helpful divorce advice for both men and women, facing divorce: http://www.divorcethinktank.com/blog/
Gordon Ramsey's Success Secret: Put Yourself In The Mind Of Your Customers
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Trey Pennewell
During the course of my work, I get to literally read or scan articles written by hundreds of authors every week - thousands every year. I have seen the best and the worst of what people have written to promote their businesses online.
Experience has taught me who will be successful with article marketing and who will fail with article marketing. I have also learned that anyone can be taught the secret to successful article marketing, but not everyone wants to accept what is being taught.
Business Lessons From Chef Gordon Ramsey
The other day, I was watching Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. If you have never seen the show, Gordon Ramsey is a popular and successful chef, whose name and reputation is known around the world.
Restaurant owners - many of whom are chefs - contact Ramsey and ask him to visit their restaurant, in essence to help them to save their restaurant from economic failure. The most amazing thing about the process is that many of the chefs have personally asked Ramsey to come, yet when he arrives, they fight with Ramsey every step of the way - determined that Ramsey will not force them to change their ways.
On day one of his visit, Ramsey tries the food as a customer and talks to the owners of the restaurant. On day two, Ramsey observes the operation of the restaurant. On day three, he has designers come in and remake the dining room and he trains the staff to understand the changes that will take place. On day four, Ramsey uses his skill to swamp the restaurant. On night four, most restaurants will have a line out the door.
It is a process that will save most restaurants, from failure.
Whether an employee or the boss, the chef always seems to believe that he or she is smarter than Ramsey, and they tend to reject the problems that Ramsey identifies and the solutions he provides.
How Gordon Ramsey's Advice Can Help The Online Marketer
In one episode, Gordon Ramsey said that the difference between a successful restaurant and one that fails can be summed up in one thought, "A successful restaurant is one that puts the desires of its customers, above the desires of its owner."
In the restaurants that Ramsey visits, customers simply desire good food at a fair price. But when a restaurant is suffering from slow sales, the first corner that owners usually cut is in eliminating "fresh food" in the kitchen. By eliminating fresh food and replacing it with canned or frozen, restaurant owners find that they can save an awful lot of money, but that step often drives away even more customers from the "fine dining" experience.
The online marketer is much in the same boat as the restaurant operator.
The online marketer needs to give online consumers a good product at a fair price, but the seller must resist the temptation to cut costs in ways that will hurt the business.
How This Applies To Article Marketing
Article marketing was developed in recognition of the fact that people go online to learn. Online marketers realized that if they were willing to teach, they could use the content they created to "attract" customers to their products and services.
Somewhere over the years, the purpose of article marketing was redefined and perverted by someone with something to sell. A lot of online marketers accepted the new definition that said that the only purpose for article marketing was to build inbound links to one's website. They said you only needed to put together enough words - 300 to 500 words - so publishers could accept your "links".
"Attraction marketing" was set aside as the "old way of doing things", and replaced with "link building" as the "new and improved" way of marketing a website.
I count myself lucky that I learned "article marketing", when it was still understood as "attraction marketing". I count myself lucky, because I remain able to "attract" hordes of traffic and considerable sales for my websites, by using article marketing the way it was originally intended.
Interestingly, the people who adopted article marketing under the "new and improved" model soon began to realize that the new kind of article marketing was not bringing the kinds of results that people were promised. So the "new and improved" model was recently "improved" again. Now the common knowledge of the "new and improved" model say that the search engines reject "duplicate" copies of articles on the Internet. To combat this, marketers are using software to rewrite an article dozens of times, so that they can put "unique computer-generated content" on each website.
I predict that the "new, new and improved" will be as unsuccessful as the "old, new and improved" model was. It is not that the search engines changed to reject "duplicate copies" of articles. Instead, the search engines started to reject articles that proved to offer no real value to readers.
Of course, this statement may generate a very important question in your mind. How does the search engines' algorithms know which articles provide value to their readers and which ones do not?
In response, let me ask you this: How many people link to your articles on those third-party websites? See, there really is a simple method that the search engines can use to determine if a particular article has any value to its audience. The search engines can count the number of links pointing to an individual article on a third-party website, to determine if people find that article useful to the needs of the consumer.
So you have got to ask yourself, will the "new, new and improved" model of "unique computer-generated content" provide enough value to readers to attract links from third-party websites? If you answer this question honestly with a "no", then you will have also predicted the failure of the "new, new and improved" model of article marketing, as I have.
Remember Gordon Ramsey's Advice
"A successful restaurant is one that puts the desires of its customers, above the desires of its owner."
It is true that article marketing done as I do it (attraction marketing) is more expensive than the "new, new and improved" model of article marketing, but it also produces better results. Just as "fresh food" will attract more diners to a restaurant, the more expensive "hand-crafted" and "polished" articles will attract more links to the article and more visitors to the author's website.
First off, article marketing - as it was done in the early days of the Internet - will accomplish more than one goal. When done well, the article will find an audience in newsletters, which can introduce your marketing message to thousands or hundreds of thousands of prospects in a single day.
Like you, we also have goals of building links for our websites and achieving a higher search engine placement for our websites, but we consider search engine placement to be secondary to the main goal of attracting customers to our websites' products and services.
So in order to achieve our first goal of reaching large audiences for our articles, we have to "attract" readers to our articles, by teaching our prospects something of value to them. When our article delivers value to our readers, then the article's resource box will generally deliver prospects to our website, where the real selling takes place.
In our world, our article on a third-party website will attract links from other websites, because we put the needs and desires of our customers / readers ahead of our own needs. And after our article has been delivered to tens or hundreds of thousands of readers in various newsletters, we will also achieve our search engine goals, because most newsletter publishers will publish a copy of the article in their online archives and people will link to it.
If It Is Not Broke, Don't Fix It
Yes we consider the search engine goals to be important to our long-range plans, but we find that we don't have to put a "unique article" on every website to get great search placement. Because we have never embraced the "new and improved" model of article marketing, we know that the "old-fashioned way" of doing things works just fine - even today.
Consider this:
Foxnews.com has a PageRank of 6;
Cnn.com has a PageRank of 7;
Msnbc.msn.com has a PageRank of 10;
Nytimes.com has a PageRank of 8;
Online.wsj.com (Wall Street Journal) has a PageRank of 7;
Latimes.com has a PageRank of 8.
Besides being news websites, do you know what else these websites have in common?
They all buy some "news content" from the Associated Press (www.ap.org) and United Press International (www.upi.com). What that means is that all of the news outlets buy and publish the same articles from the same sources, and yet, we don't see the search engines penalizing the news sites, do we?
If the search engines are not penalizing the corporate news websites for printing the same non-unique articles, then why should we believe that the search engines are penalizing non-unique content on your website and in your article marketing endeavors?
In Conclusion
Article marketing works well when people link to your articles - on one third-party website or a dozen third-party websites. But in order for people to want to link to your articles, the content must be top-notch. People aren't going to link to crap articles; so computer-generated content should be avoided in the same way that fine dining restaurants should avoid buying canned foods.
By focusing on the desires of our future customers (solutions for their problems), we are able to use article marketing successfully to promote any website we want to promote. We think about what is important to our customers, and then we answer our customers' questions. By putting ourselves into the mind of our prospects, we are able to give them the exact kind of content they want to read.
In doing so, we successfully drive traffic to our websites, AND we create excellent search engine placement for our websites. And when we say websites, we do mean more than one website. We successfully utilize article marketing for dozens of websites, so we know that what we teach can be duplicated by the masses, if only the masses are willing to accept what we teach.
About the Author:
Trey Pennewell works for http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/ article distribution service and provides process support for the http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com/ Pay-For-Ranking SEO service. Just recently, The Phantom Writers introduced professional Video Articles production, to help its customers take advantage of the new frontier in Video Marketing, using great video content and video sharing sites such as YouTube and others.
Copyright © 2009 Trey Pennewell
During the course of my work, I get to literally read or scan articles written by hundreds of authors every week - thousands every year. I have seen the best and the worst of what people have written to promote their businesses online.
Experience has taught me who will be successful with article marketing and who will fail with article marketing. I have also learned that anyone can be taught the secret to successful article marketing, but not everyone wants to accept what is being taught.
Business Lessons From Chef Gordon Ramsey
The other day, I was watching Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. If you have never seen the show, Gordon Ramsey is a popular and successful chef, whose name and reputation is known around the world.
Restaurant owners - many of whom are chefs - contact Ramsey and ask him to visit their restaurant, in essence to help them to save their restaurant from economic failure. The most amazing thing about the process is that many of the chefs have personally asked Ramsey to come, yet when he arrives, they fight with Ramsey every step of the way - determined that Ramsey will not force them to change their ways.
On day one of his visit, Ramsey tries the food as a customer and talks to the owners of the restaurant. On day two, Ramsey observes the operation of the restaurant. On day three, he has designers come in and remake the dining room and he trains the staff to understand the changes that will take place. On day four, Ramsey uses his skill to swamp the restaurant. On night four, most restaurants will have a line out the door.
It is a process that will save most restaurants, from failure.
Whether an employee or the boss, the chef always seems to believe that he or she is smarter than Ramsey, and they tend to reject the problems that Ramsey identifies and the solutions he provides.
How Gordon Ramsey's Advice Can Help The Online Marketer
In one episode, Gordon Ramsey said that the difference between a successful restaurant and one that fails can be summed up in one thought, "A successful restaurant is one that puts the desires of its customers, above the desires of its owner."
In the restaurants that Ramsey visits, customers simply desire good food at a fair price. But when a restaurant is suffering from slow sales, the first corner that owners usually cut is in eliminating "fresh food" in the kitchen. By eliminating fresh food and replacing it with canned or frozen, restaurant owners find that they can save an awful lot of money, but that step often drives away even more customers from the "fine dining" experience.
The online marketer is much in the same boat as the restaurant operator.
The online marketer needs to give online consumers a good product at a fair price, but the seller must resist the temptation to cut costs in ways that will hurt the business.
How This Applies To Article Marketing
Article marketing was developed in recognition of the fact that people go online to learn. Online marketers realized that if they were willing to teach, they could use the content they created to "attract" customers to their products and services.
Somewhere over the years, the purpose of article marketing was redefined and perverted by someone with something to sell. A lot of online marketers accepted the new definition that said that the only purpose for article marketing was to build inbound links to one's website. They said you only needed to put together enough words - 300 to 500 words - so publishers could accept your "links".
"Attraction marketing" was set aside as the "old way of doing things", and replaced with "link building" as the "new and improved" way of marketing a website.
I count myself lucky that I learned "article marketing", when it was still understood as "attraction marketing". I count myself lucky, because I remain able to "attract" hordes of traffic and considerable sales for my websites, by using article marketing the way it was originally intended.
Interestingly, the people who adopted article marketing under the "new and improved" model soon began to realize that the new kind of article marketing was not bringing the kinds of results that people were promised. So the "new and improved" model was recently "improved" again. Now the common knowledge of the "new and improved" model say that the search engines reject "duplicate" copies of articles on the Internet. To combat this, marketers are using software to rewrite an article dozens of times, so that they can put "unique computer-generated content" on each website.
I predict that the "new, new and improved" will be as unsuccessful as the "old, new and improved" model was. It is not that the search engines changed to reject "duplicate copies" of articles. Instead, the search engines started to reject articles that proved to offer no real value to readers.
Of course, this statement may generate a very important question in your mind. How does the search engines' algorithms know which articles provide value to their readers and which ones do not?
In response, let me ask you this: How many people link to your articles on those third-party websites? See, there really is a simple method that the search engines can use to determine if a particular article has any value to its audience. The search engines can count the number of links pointing to an individual article on a third-party website, to determine if people find that article useful to the needs of the consumer.
So you have got to ask yourself, will the "new, new and improved" model of "unique computer-generated content" provide enough value to readers to attract links from third-party websites? If you answer this question honestly with a "no", then you will have also predicted the failure of the "new, new and improved" model of article marketing, as I have.
Remember Gordon Ramsey's Advice
"A successful restaurant is one that puts the desires of its customers, above the desires of its owner."
It is true that article marketing done as I do it (attraction marketing) is more expensive than the "new, new and improved" model of article marketing, but it also produces better results. Just as "fresh food" will attract more diners to a restaurant, the more expensive "hand-crafted" and "polished" articles will attract more links to the article and more visitors to the author's website.
First off, article marketing - as it was done in the early days of the Internet - will accomplish more than one goal. When done well, the article will find an audience in newsletters, which can introduce your marketing message to thousands or hundreds of thousands of prospects in a single day.
Like you, we also have goals of building links for our websites and achieving a higher search engine placement for our websites, but we consider search engine placement to be secondary to the main goal of attracting customers to our websites' products and services.
So in order to achieve our first goal of reaching large audiences for our articles, we have to "attract" readers to our articles, by teaching our prospects something of value to them. When our article delivers value to our readers, then the article's resource box will generally deliver prospects to our website, where the real selling takes place.
In our world, our article on a third-party website will attract links from other websites, because we put the needs and desires of our customers / readers ahead of our own needs. And after our article has been delivered to tens or hundreds of thousands of readers in various newsletters, we will also achieve our search engine goals, because most newsletter publishers will publish a copy of the article in their online archives and people will link to it.
If It Is Not Broke, Don't Fix It
Yes we consider the search engine goals to be important to our long-range plans, but we find that we don't have to put a "unique article" on every website to get great search placement. Because we have never embraced the "new and improved" model of article marketing, we know that the "old-fashioned way" of doing things works just fine - even today.
Consider this:
Besides being news websites, do you know what else these websites have in common?
They all buy some "news content" from the Associated Press (www.ap.org) and United Press International (www.upi.com). What that means is that all of the news outlets buy and publish the same articles from the same sources, and yet, we don't see the search engines penalizing the news sites, do we?
If the search engines are not penalizing the corporate news websites for printing the same non-unique articles, then why should we believe that the search engines are penalizing non-unique content on your website and in your article marketing endeavors?
In Conclusion
Article marketing works well when people link to your articles - on one third-party website or a dozen third-party websites. But in order for people to want to link to your articles, the content must be top-notch. People aren't going to link to crap articles; so computer-generated content should be avoided in the same way that fine dining restaurants should avoid buying canned foods.
By focusing on the desires of our future customers (solutions for their problems), we are able to use article marketing successfully to promote any website we want to promote. We think about what is important to our customers, and then we answer our customers' questions. By putting ourselves into the mind of our prospects, we are able to give them the exact kind of content they want to read.
In doing so, we successfully drive traffic to our websites, AND we create excellent search engine placement for our websites. And when we say websites, we do mean more than one website. We successfully utilize article marketing for dozens of websites, so we know that what we teach can be duplicated by the masses, if only the masses are willing to accept what we teach.
About the Author:
Trey Pennewell works for http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/ article distribution service and provides process support for the http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com/ Pay-For-Ranking SEO service. Just recently, The Phantom Writers introduced professional Video Articles production, to help its customers take advantage of the new frontier in Video Marketing, using great video content and video sharing sites such as YouTube and others.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Banks Do Not Want To Foreclose Your Home
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2009 Arlo Mooney
When the phone is ringing every day and the bank is threatening to foreclose your home, because you are behind on payments, it is easy to believe that the banker is drooling over the possibility of foreclosing on your home. But you should know that the bank stands to lose a lot of money if they are forced to foreclose on your home. Read this article to learn the real truth about banks and foreclosures.
With what I have learned about banks and foreclosure over the last couple years, the information that I am about to share with you now, could have helped a few of my friends avoid losing their homes. Because I could not help them in their time of need, it is my hope that I could help you now, in your time of need.
I know that my initial suggestion that "banks do not want to foreclose on your home" may seem far-fetched to you now, but by the time you have read this article in full, you will recognize that you have more power over the bank than the bank would care to admit to you.
The Truth Is In The Numbers
Let us suppose for the sake of this story that you paid $100,000 for your home. And let us suppose that you put a full 20% down on that home five years ago. In this scenario, your bank loaned you $80,000 to help you purchase your home, and at best, you have probably paid $10,000 towards the principle of your home loan.
In the past year, you suddenly found your finances stretched for one reason or another. Perhaps you changed jobs, or your business contracted with the economy. Perhaps you had a financial emergency that required a lot of cash to solve, and now you find yourself struggling to catch up on the rest of your bills.
In the end, it really does not matter the reason for your current financial crisis. It will have little bearing on the outcome of this story.
This is where most people make a mistake in their understanding of the banks' motives in threatening foreclosure. The bank is not threatening foreclosure because they want your house. The bank is threatening foreclosure, because they want to spur you to action, to fix your current financial crisis.
I know you are thinking that the bank will sell your home for its full retail value, but they won't, because they cannot afford to hold onto your house for a long period of time. In order to sell a home for full retail price, the bank would need to commit to holding the home, perhaps for years, until that perfect buyer arrives to buy it.
If you force your bank to foreclose your home, your bank will put your house up for auction at a sheriff's sale. PAY ATTENTION... this is important. When your bank puts your house up for auction, they will generally only get 35 to 40 cents on the dollar for your home.
The bank is currently out 70 cents on the dollar against the retail value of your home, but if forced to auction, the best the bank can expect to get out of your home is half what the bank has invested into your home!
In the scenario I have outlined here, you owe $70,000 on a $100,000 home. But if you force the bank to foreclose your home, the best the bank can hope to achieve is to get $35 to $40,000 for your home at auction. Do the math. If your bank forecloses your home, your bank will lose between $30 and $35,000, when they sell your home. Ouch!
This is the key information that you will use to stop the foreclosure of your home. As you can now recognize, your bank needs you to stay in your home, more than they desire to foreclose on your home.
Leverage
As should now be obvious, you as the homeowner have a lot of leverage over your bank. And if you play your cards just right, you will not have to lose your home.
If you find yourself behind on payments and you are looking for a way to save your home from foreclosure, you need to speak to a company like National Foreclosure Counseling Services (http://nfcscorp.com/). NFCS is a company, which can help you negotiate a repayment plan or loan modification on your behalf.
When NFCS contacts your bank on your behalf, your bank knows that you are interested in taking whatever steps are necessary to get back on the straight and narrow with them. When banks realize that you are serious about staying in your home, they have to weigh the options of negotiating a loan modification or losing an average of $30,000 when they foreclose your home.
If the bank has someone in a home that wants to stay in the home, then the bank stands a chance of retaining some of their profits on their original loan, if they are willing to renegotiate the terms of that loan. However, if the bank is forced to foreclose on the property, then chances are good that the bank will lose a lot of money.
Think about it. Your bank does not want to foreclose your home. It is in the best interests of your bank to keep you in your home, period.
National Foreclosure Counseling Services (http://nfcscorp.com/) has a proven track record (with documentation) of helping families such as yours renegotiate with their banks to help them to stay in their homes. In just the last 90 days, NFCS has helped 600 families renegotiate with their banks to avoid foreclosure.
The Most Important Step In This Process
You have the power to save your home from foreclosure, if you simply decide that you want to exercise your power of self-determination.
Who knows? You may have decided that you don't want to try to hang on to your home for whatever reason. So long as you understand that a foreclosure will hurt your credit for at least ten years, perhaps preventing you from being able to buy another home, then by all means, it is your choice to accept foreclosure or not.
The current real estate crisis will not last forever, and housing prices will rebound eventually. Even if you see yourself upside-down in your home now, you may just find that if you hang on to your home another five or ten years, then housing prices will bounce back and you will survive the current real estate crisis without great financial loss.
But if you are like most people, you probably cannot bear the thought of losing your home and the equity you have so far built up in your home. If you desire to hang on to your home, then you alone must take that first step towards saving your home from foreclosure. You must either visit the NFCS website at (http://nfcscorp.com/), or you should call NFCS at: 1-800-824-4459.
Author's Note: This article was originally posted at: http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/banks-do-not-want-to-foreclose/2009/01/
About the Author:
Arlo Mooney has dedicated himself to helping people properly manage their personal finances, by helping them to understand the gravity of their personal financial decisions. With his background in economics, he strives to help people understand complex economic principles. Read more of his work at The Financial Side of Economics blog at: http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/
Copyright © 2009 Arlo Mooney
When the phone is ringing every day and the bank is threatening to foreclose your home, because you are behind on payments, it is easy to believe that the banker is drooling over the possibility of foreclosing on your home. But you should know that the bank stands to lose a lot of money if they are forced to foreclose on your home. Read this article to learn the real truth about banks and foreclosures.
With what I have learned about banks and foreclosure over the last couple years, the information that I am about to share with you now, could have helped a few of my friends avoid losing their homes. Because I could not help them in their time of need, it is my hope that I could help you now, in your time of need.
I know that my initial suggestion that "banks do not want to foreclose on your home" may seem far-fetched to you now, but by the time you have read this article in full, you will recognize that you have more power over the bank than the bank would care to admit to you.
The Truth Is In The Numbers
Let us suppose for the sake of this story that you paid $100,000 for your home. And let us suppose that you put a full 20% down on that home five years ago. In this scenario, your bank loaned you $80,000 to help you purchase your home, and at best, you have probably paid $10,000 towards the principle of your home loan.
In the past year, you suddenly found your finances stretched for one reason or another. Perhaps you changed jobs, or your business contracted with the economy. Perhaps you had a financial emergency that required a lot of cash to solve, and now you find yourself struggling to catch up on the rest of your bills.
In the end, it really does not matter the reason for your current financial crisis. It will have little bearing on the outcome of this story.
This is where most people make a mistake in their understanding of the banks' motives in threatening foreclosure. The bank is not threatening foreclosure because they want your house. The bank is threatening foreclosure, because they want to spur you to action, to fix your current financial crisis.
I know you are thinking that the bank will sell your home for its full retail value, but they won't, because they cannot afford to hold onto your house for a long period of time. In order to sell a home for full retail price, the bank would need to commit to holding the home, perhaps for years, until that perfect buyer arrives to buy it.
If you force your bank to foreclose your home, your bank will put your house up for auction at a sheriff's sale. PAY ATTENTION... this is important. When your bank puts your house up for auction, they will generally only get 35 to 40 cents on the dollar for your home.
The bank is currently out 70 cents on the dollar against the retail value of your home, but if forced to auction, the best the bank can expect to get out of your home is half what the bank has invested into your home!
In the scenario I have outlined here, you owe $70,000 on a $100,000 home. But if you force the bank to foreclose your home, the best the bank can hope to achieve is to get $35 to $40,000 for your home at auction. Do the math. If your bank forecloses your home, your bank will lose between $30 and $35,000, when they sell your home. Ouch!
This is the key information that you will use to stop the foreclosure of your home. As you can now recognize, your bank needs you to stay in your home, more than they desire to foreclose on your home.
Leverage
As should now be obvious, you as the homeowner have a lot of leverage over your bank. And if you play your cards just right, you will not have to lose your home.
If you find yourself behind on payments and you are looking for a way to save your home from foreclosure, you need to speak to a company like National Foreclosure Counseling Services (http://nfcscorp.com/). NFCS is a company, which can help you negotiate a repayment plan or loan modification on your behalf.
When NFCS contacts your bank on your behalf, your bank knows that you are interested in taking whatever steps are necessary to get back on the straight and narrow with them. When banks realize that you are serious about staying in your home, they have to weigh the options of negotiating a loan modification or losing an average of $30,000 when they foreclose your home.
If the bank has someone in a home that wants to stay in the home, then the bank stands a chance of retaining some of their profits on their original loan, if they are willing to renegotiate the terms of that loan. However, if the bank is forced to foreclose on the property, then chances are good that the bank will lose a lot of money.
Think about it. Your bank does not want to foreclose your home. It is in the best interests of your bank to keep you in your home, period.
National Foreclosure Counseling Services (http://nfcscorp.com/) has a proven track record (with documentation) of helping families such as yours renegotiate with their banks to help them to stay in their homes. In just the last 90 days, NFCS has helped 600 families renegotiate with their banks to avoid foreclosure.
The Most Important Step In This Process
You have the power to save your home from foreclosure, if you simply decide that you want to exercise your power of self-determination.
Who knows? You may have decided that you don't want to try to hang on to your home for whatever reason. So long as you understand that a foreclosure will hurt your credit for at least ten years, perhaps preventing you from being able to buy another home, then by all means, it is your choice to accept foreclosure or not.
The current real estate crisis will not last forever, and housing prices will rebound eventually. Even if you see yourself upside-down in your home now, you may just find that if you hang on to your home another five or ten years, then housing prices will bounce back and you will survive the current real estate crisis without great financial loss.
But if you are like most people, you probably cannot bear the thought of losing your home and the equity you have so far built up in your home. If you desire to hang on to your home, then you alone must take that first step towards saving your home from foreclosure. You must either visit the NFCS website at (http://nfcscorp.com/), or you should call NFCS at: 1-800-824-4459.
Author's Note: This article was originally posted at: http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/banks-do-not-want-to-foreclose/2009/01/
About the Author:
Arlo Mooney has dedicated himself to helping people properly manage their personal finances, by helping them to understand the gravity of their personal financial decisions. With his background in economics, he strives to help people understand complex economic principles. Read more of his work at The Financial Side of Economics blog at: http://cash-advance-payday-loans.org/blog/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)