Since quite often when we do Search Optimization for a client there are some website design changes involved, I thought it would be good to go over a few things that really turn visitors and potential customers away from a website.

This is a partial list of things that tend to annoy people. I’m sure you can add to it but this is just a starting point.  If you recognize something on the list that your website does, stop reading and go change it.  Who knows how much this is costing you?

• Having a secure site is good.  But the only part that needs to be secure is the checkout.  Let people shop to their hearts content. If they want to use the back arrow, let them, telling them their content has expired is bad. Secure pages are for buying, not shopping.
• Don't make visitors fill out 30 fields in a form to buy a $10 item. You need the basic info required to process the transaction. Making people fill out extra information turns them off. Why do you think so many people shop on Amazon? Because they don’t have to fill out all those fields again.  If you’re doing this, your customers hate it. Amazon on the other hand will probably thank you.

• Don't make people sign up for your site. If they want extra contact from you they’ll ask for it.  We all have more Passwords than we can remember now.  If you want them to buy, let them buy something and forget the secret handshake stuff.
• Don't make people enter their credit card information just to see the full price with tax and shipping. The Credit Card info is for the end after you have told them what the total is.  Let them decide to buy before you ask for their credit card.
• People shop online at work -Stop with the automatic commercials and music.  I have had customers shopping while working at North American Aerospace Defense Command Headquarters-NORAD.  The last thing I want to do is startle them and have them push the wrong button trying to shut off the sound!  If you have music on your website, it’s not cute, take it off.
• Don’t make visitors download an ActiveX control or a Flash update to see your site or products.  If you want to use something like this, I don’t care how cool you think it is either make it compatible with older versions or don’t use it at all.  The cool factor doesn’t do squat if your potential customers are leaving.
• If you take an email address from your visitor, don't abuse it. An e-mail once in a while is fine; an e-mail every day is annoying. And don't sell it. For crying out loud. Would you want someone to do that to you? Make you money from selling your product or service, not your email list.
• Menus and price lists that are PDFs don't always load nicely. If it's worth being on your site, it's worth being a regular Web page. Unless you are selling wholesale only and you don’t want more than ten customers.
• Ads, if you must have them, should be relevant. If you sell sporting equipment, let’s keep the advertising in the same subject.
• Weird background colors, strange artsey fonts are hard to read. Don't make people suffer just to figure out what you have to offer.  They’ll just go someplace else.
• Blinking banners, words, lights, buttons,… Really?
• Make sure your site works in all the common browsers.  Don’t assume that just because it looks good in yours, it works in all of them.
• When you offer a “Click to enlarge photo,” make the photo bigger! Don’t just show the same picture in a popup window!
• Product descriptions should be bulleted and easy to skim. If you want to give detailed descriptions put them at the bottom after the easy to get to information. Don't make people read “War And Peace,” when they really want to know just one thing about what you have to offer.

I know this isn’t everything that bugs visitors. Feel free to write me and I’ll add suggestions to the next list.

No amount of Search Optimization can help your business if your website frustrates your visitors.  Before we send tons of traffic to your site, make sure it is ready for business.  Call 800-789-0017 and we’ll help you get customers not just traffic.

Innovative new financing tool any
investor can use sells homes in just days – not weeks or months!  

by Lou Brown

By now, most investors probably know about the government’s
tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers. But do you know about
“Obama Bucks?”

“Obama Bucks” are an innovative financing arrangement in
which investors can give buyers the tax credit up front so they can use it for
a down payment or to fix up the home. Investors get paid back when the tax
credit is provided to the buyer afterwards. It’s just like getting the
government to pay you on every deal you close.

Investors know buying homes isn’t a problem with rates and
prices as low as they are right now. The problem is selling them.

“Obama Bucks” helps solve that challenge because it opens
investors to a whole new market of first-time home buyers that the government
estimates could be as high as 800,000 people. Here are just some of results
we’ve seen so far:

·         Earned $10,417,680 on 25 deals in just the 4
months.

·         Brought in $53,000 in one weekend for one of my
students.

·         Netted $43,000 on another property I sold in 3
days after it was on the market for 12 months!

·         Generated 60%-70% profit margins for my students
in all 50 states.

WARNING: The federal government’s tax credit for first-time
home buyers may expire November 30. There’s some talk in Congress about
extending the tax credit or modifying it so the government is paying as much.

I even seen a program like this in my 30 years of investing
and I doubt I’ll ever see it again. My students and I have obviously enjoyed
tremendous success these last several  months and if you would like to learn more, I invite you to view my free
webinar, Wednesday, September 21, 8 pm Eastern Time.

###

About Louis “Lou”
Brown: As CEO of Street Smart Investors , real estate investors in all fifty states across Canada
and fifteen foreign countries including as far away as Australia and New
Zealand have long regarded the training, systems and forms created by Louis
Brown as the best in the industry.

Quoted as an expert by many
publications and authors, “Lou” draws from a wide and varied background as a
real estate investor having been buying property since 1976.  He’s
invested in single-family homes, apartments, hotels, developed subdivisions and
built and renovated homes and apartments. Each of these experiences has given
him a proving ground for the most cutting edge concepts in real estate today.
 

He’s widely known as a creative financing genius
with his deal structuring concepts including House Monster, which is an
innovative solution to help first-time home buyers and to help investors sell
more homes. Being a teacher at heart he enjoys sharing his discoveries with
others.  
He’s served the industry in many volunteer positions
such as past President and designated lifetime member of the Georgia Real
Estate Investors Association, the world’s largest investor group.  He is
also founding President of the National Real Estate Investors Association,
which serves as the umbrella association of local investor groups.  

You have enough to do with your daily activities
for your small business. Yet, you know you need to research communications technologies
to help your business connect with customers and give employees access to their
phones from anywhere. Or maybe the number of Voice over IP (VoIP) and voice
mail call forwarding solutions feels too overwhelming making it hard to figure
out where to begin your research.

More all-in-one telephony solutions are
available to simplify things so you don't manage multiple solutions, providers
and bills. For example, you want to route calls, set up a small call center and
allow employees to stay connected when they're away from the office. VoIP
solutions exist to combine all of these features so you don't have to look for
a call center solution from one provider and voice mail call forwarding from
another.

Most of the popular VoIP services don't
offer anything beyond providing your employees with a way to make calls and
stay connected. Several emerging VoIP solutions offer converged voice and data
services for use over one network. One of those is the Business Communication
Manager (BCM), which combines unified messaging, interactive voice response,
multimedia call center, IP routing, firewall and wireless. BCM can also provide
the following benefits for small businesses:

Stay
connected from anywhere: Employees set up their
phones to forward voice, text and fax messages to their cell phones. They can
change their greetings and access their messages from any phone, handheld
device or over the internet. Employees can make and receive calls as they were
at the office without incurring charges.

Manage
messages through one application: Solutions that integrate
voice, fax and email messages on computers and handheld devices allow employees
to manage them through one application like Microsoft Exchange or Outlook.

Route
calls to the right department and people: An automated
feature contains personalized greetings and menu options for directing calls.
This saves time for customers and ensures customers reach the right people. Even
callers can leave a message for an entire department or a group of users.

Secure
your connection: Some solutions come with features that
can secure your connection with authentication, firewall and virtual private
networks (VPNs).

Create
a call center: Route incoming calls to 10 employees
to handle orders, reservations or support. Some can open two queues based on
agent skills so callers go to the right agent and receive the best service.

These features were once only available to
large businesses because of the cost and they were too much for the small
business. BCM has flexibility so you can scale it and activate new features
plus it can work with businesses with just three employees. These BCM50 case studies show how
the product works for small businesses. Also, several models are available, so here's
a comparison of BCM products to get an idea of the different types of solutions available.

Small businesses have options that cover
all of their telephony needs without feature and product overkill.

Meryl
K. Evans is a freelance writer. You can reach her at merylk@gmail.com or stop by www.meryl.net.

Various ways to make money online is flooding the internet. But choosing what is right for you can sometimes be confusing. It is not enough to just know how to make money online. You need to know what are the legitimate ways to make money online and learn how to do it right to be successful. You need to assess yourself whether you are a person having the skills to become a web worker or someone who wants to invest in an online business and just hire and manage people. Before you jump into any money making online opportunities, you need to be cautious about online scams and know what type of money making online ways suits you best. Anything that promises you to get rich quickly are fraud. Making money online is not that easy, you need to put in a lot of effort, do a thorough research and have dedication for you to become successful.

The latest news to come out of the sell to rent back market reveals that it is not only those individuals who are on a lower than average income who are turning to companies offering a sell and rent back solution. In the past, the lower income families have been stereotyped as the ones most likely to struggle to maintain their mortgage repayments, which ultimately lead to them falling into mortgage arrears. Of course, they also struggle from month to month to service other bills and often they are unable to catch up on mortgage arrears, which lead to threats of repossession. This of course has led many seeking out a solution to sell their homes as a way of avoiding repossession and many have chosen to turn towards sell and rent back companies as the answer.

However, the "Times" has brought to light the fact that the "middle" class, whose income is often substantially higher, may also become a victim to financial worries and may choose to seek out sell and rent back companies.

Larger income, larger financial commitments

While individuals in the "middle" class may be able to rely on substantially more income per annum, due to their lifestyles they also have much larger financial commitments and outgoings. This of course leaves many in a precarious situation, especially with the credit crunch.

As house prices tumble, many have been left watching in disbelief as the equity in their homes plummet and continue to crumble away before their eyes. The brick and mortar individuals invested in, while being a family home, once provided a security and solid investment for the future. However, that investment is now not so promising and of course, a great deal of money and savings has gone into purchasing the property. For those who are lucky enough to have paid off their mortgage, selling their home at this time while there is still some equity left in it, may be the best opportunity available to them. However, trying to find a buyer today is often a great deal harder than it was a year or so ago due to property being such a poor investment right now. Few out there are willing to take the risk of investing thousands of pounds into brick and mortar only to have it sit there and decrease in value. This is where companies specialising in buying and renting back differ.

By selling this way, the homeowner releases at least whatever equity is left in their home, and this can then be taken and used to re-invest in something far more secure than property. Of course, there is the option of being able to rent back the property and remain in it with the option of buying back and becoming the owner again in the future, if they should choose to venture down that road.

Big homes and large salaries often come with high maintenance lifestyles, which many may be struggling to maintain. Those who have found themselves weighed down by their lifestyle costs could choose to sell and rent back for equity release, as opposed trying to re-mortgage their home. Re-mortgages are a great deal harder to secure now than they once were, which may leave those struggling financially with little by way of options.

It is time to make your website with a professional look, especially if you are getting serious to start your online business. Even though the content of a site or a page is still number one, impressions that you make upon the first glance of a viewer to a certain website is very important too. With a professional looking website, you can gain more trust from your visitors.

Now if you want to have your site built quickly, you can just search for sites that provide free templates to download like Site Source 101. They have all themes that you would need. You can download free cool templates, free relaxation templates and free templates that suits your project's theme. And the best thing about free templates is that you can easily add your content and upload it to your site, nothing much required. If you are serious with your online business, do not hesitate to spend time looking for free templates that can save you development time and money.

Backlinks are important to websites. What are backlinks? Backlinks or what we call the inbound links are the links that are directed to your website and known as the building blocks to good SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The number of backlinks a website has is a good indicator of how popular the site is as well as it determines the importance with search engines.

Websites having a larger number of quality backlinks are given more credit by search engines like Google.

It is through search engines that people can find your blogs or when you have a link posted on other sites that links back to you. Here are the fun ways to get backlinks:

Submit your blog post to social directories like Digg, Propeller, StumbleUpon, Reddit and the likes.

Blog commenting – post comments to other blogs and include your website or blogsite

• Article Submissions – have good content in your blogs to get decent backlinks

• If you're tagged, be happy with it because you will be involved in viral linking

• Link exchange is also a good way to get backlinks but make sure that your posting relevant links to your site.

• Begin to develop keyword relevancy

• Forum posting is also a good way to get backlinks like in Yahoo Answers and the likes

There are so many fun ways to get backlinks. All you need to do is use it to the maximum potential in order to get good traffic.

If you want to get more internet marketing trainings that are free, you need to search legitmate sites like

What is essential to rank for profitable and competitive keywords? Getting backlinks is the answer! Why? The reason is that backlinks spell credibility in the eyes of Google. The credibility which Google refers to is the “Pagerank” which is calculated on a 0-10 scale. There are three important things that affect pagerank with regards to backlinks and these are volume, quality and scarcity.

You can get backlinks from a lot of sites having high pagerank. Google will think that the site linked to you because your site is good and this is a vote in the eyes of Google. If more websites that are well-known will link to you the better credibility your site will have.

Getting backlinks is important for those who are making money online and those who want to earn money online because the more credible their site the more chance it will get to be placed well in the search engine results.

Google, MSN and Yahoo! each have a local business search program. Orange County SEO experts will list your website and business information with these programs. The benefits of having local search is that your website will appear in Google Map listings and certain search strings. Have you ever searched for a local pizza place online and a map popped up with listings beside of it? Well, those are local search results. You want to be seen.

According to a Piper Jaffray 2008 research paper, 30 percent of all queries contain a city, state or zip code. With 2.6 billion local searches performed each month, the Internet has now surpassed print Yellow Pages and newspaper as a primary source for local consumer service information.

Internet users are seeking local websites. Their search behaviors are becoming more sophisticated in order to find what they are looking for. A search optimization strategy that focuses on those local searchers will drive visitors to your site who are seeking specifically what you offer.

Visit Orange County SEO to learn more.

Author: mter9248

Businesses today are becoming more and more complex. As a direct result, international firms and enterprises are faced with a new set of challenges every single day.

To help them remain competitive amid these changes, many firms rely on analysts whose job it is to analyze an organizations structure, efficiency, or profits.

In private industry, an international business consulting analyst is simply called a management consultant. Besides analyzing the problem-ridden organizational structure of a business, the analyst will also propose ways to improve these weak spots.

For instance, your company may be small but it is rapidly growing and you need help improving your methods of managing and controlling inventories as well as expenses. An international business consulting analyst who has expertise in just-in-time inventory management would be the professional to hire.

How about if your company is a large one and you are in the process of creating a new division? You may still need to hire a business consulting analyst who will help reorganize the corporate structure and eliminate duplicate or nonessential jobs.

An international business analyst may be working independent of any management consulting firm. And even management consulting firms may range in size from single practitioners to large international organizations that cater to an international market.

Some analysts may specialize in specific fields of industry while others take a more general approach. So you may end up hiring an analyst who will handle health care or telecommunications and a different one who will be responsible for human resources, marketing, logistics, or information systems.

The Work Process

Once an international business consulting analyst is contracted for his or her services, the first thing he or she does is to define first the nature and extent of the problem. This is the initial phase of an international business consulting analysts job where they are required to analyze relevant data, including annual revenues, employment, or expenditures.

They may also need to interview managers and employees as well as observe the different operations in the specific area of business.

After identifying the problem, the international business consulting analyst will then come up with sound proposals and solutions to address the problem. To prepare these solutions, the international business consulting analyst takes into account the nature of the organization, its relationship with peers in the industry, and its internal organization and structure. Often, an international business consulting analyst will gain insight into the problem by building and solving mathematical models.

Afterwards, the analyst will report his or her findings as well as recommendations to the client. Generally, these recommendations are submitted in writing but some international business consulting analysts may make oral presentations, depending on client preference.

Source: Free Articles