What exactly do you call a small business? A business that only has a small turnover? And do you count hundreds of dollars a day as \”small\”? Not if the stuff you’re selling is cheap stuff. So what’s going to be the best shopping cart to choose for my small business? Before answering that question you have to understand - what is a small business?

Are you selling plenty of things a day? Do you get heaps of hits? Are you managing those hits well? Or are you more of a \”Mom and Pop\” store - small sales, limited volume and customers you mostly know personally? You’ll have to select a shopping cart based on which of these categories you fit into.

Even with a simple search you can find lot’s of results for Ecommerce shopping carts. But what exactly are you looking for when you’re searching for a shopping cart? Maybe you want something that lets people quickly choose and buy a product.

Or, maybe you would like to give the shoppers more choice - \”Add to Cart\”, \”Remove from Cart\” - or maybe even the option to communicate with a live salesman during the process. All of these are features that greatly improve your image with the customer.

By now you’re probably getting curiousa what’s the best choice for a shopping cart for my \”small\” business? Well, the first question is, of course, whatas your budget? Obviously there will be a difference in cost depending on which category your business is in. Your shopping cart could be your only chance to interact with and impress the customer. Often a satisfied customer will return many times. How much of a premium would you be prepared to pay for that?

Also, how much do you want your customers to pay by using your cart? Often, over-priced service charges can deter them from buying your products. You should work out whether your vendor has a service charge per sale, and make sure the customer is not going to be frightened off by the cost!

There are times when your business calls for lots of products to be checked off a list. How often would your shopper have to revisit the cart? Is there a program that can directly load the cart in the background? That would be cool. Further, it would not break the rhythm of checking boxes so the shopper may buy more, making the cart program pay for itself.

So basically, if you’re looking at what’s the best shopping cart for your small business, the answer lies in working out how long you will want your \”small\” business to stay small. Of course every Large business started off small, but they also had a clear focus on what the customer wants. If you choose a well-designed, easy-to-use shopping cart, maybe you’ll get enough customers to go big too.

If you want to get yourself out there on the internet, there’s one thing you will need - a website. Before you can get your site online, you’ll need to look into web hosting companies and find the right one for your site. How do you pick the best hosting company?

There are so many different web hosting companies out there beckoning to you - they all seem pretty good, which makes it even more difficult to decide. Of course, not every web hosting company will perform equally well at meeting the unique needs of your website. In this article, you’ll be able to get a little more information about what to look for in a web hosting company.

Before you even begin your search, you need to think about the things which your site will need. Making a list can be helpful in this process. Consider what the design of your website will be like. Think about how much disk space your site will need, whether Linux or Windows hosting will be best for your site and what will need to be included - do you need databases? A shopping cart? These considerations will help you narrow down the options and choose a host which can give you what your site needs.

Now start your research. A quick search on your favorite search engine should do it, but you could also talk to other business owners or your friends to find out who they use or get any recommendations. The first thing you want to look at is reliability. You want a hosting company that guarantees at least 99% uptime. This is important to your website, especially if it is a business website because if the site is down, you are not getting visitors; therefore, you are not getting sales.

The disk space offered by each hosting company should also be considered. There will probably be many different packages available. Be sure to compare comparable plans against each other to find the best deal for the feature you need. Space is important, but so is bandwidth, the number of email accounts you can have through the site and any extras like scripts.

The first thing many people do is go by price. This is not always the best option. In many cases, you get what you pay for, but not in all. When looking at price, you should also look at dependability and the reputation of the company. Talk to other subscribers to find out their opinions or do a search on the internet for opinions before you choose a certain company.

Web hosting companies who offer high quality hosting services for a low price are out there, but you should compare and ensure that the features you need are all there before you sign anything.

Email marketing is just one of many tools available to market your products and services. Is it right for you?

Here are some criteria for you to consider.

1. Is email used by the majority of your intended audience?

If a sizable number of your prospects do not use email, you might want to find other methods of communicating with them. If, on the other hand, your target market already makes use of email nad is comfortable with it, email marketing may be an excellent choice for your business.

2. The decision to buy your product or service is not made on a moment’s notice.

With exceptions duly noted, in most cases if prospects are willing to invest time to learn more about your product, you should strongly consider email marketing.

3. You can give away a sample, prior version, or “first chapter”.

If you can give away a “taste” of your product or service, email marketing can definitely work in conjunction with that. The free item actually serves two purposes. First, it helps encourage the prospect overcome their initial reluctance to supply their email address. Second, it provides the prospect with a risk-free method of getting to know you and your service or product.

You can easily discuss aspects of the free item in a series of follow up emails. Think about it…by receiving the free item, they are giving you a reason to follow up with them. Let’s say you provided a free ten-page report. You can send out one email asking if they received the report, another summarizing the first section, and so on. You may also decide to simply chop up the report up and dole it out it in small chunks over the next seven, ten, or more days.

4. You have a stable of other similar services or products that they may want to buy.

If that does not describe your business, I suggest you make plans to rectify it immediately. The reason is simple. You have already spent a considerable amount of time and effort to locate interested prospects and persuade them to buy. A certain percentage of them will want to “go deep” and buy more from you, if only you offered something more. The easiest sales you make will be sales to existing customers, and it’s not difficult to understand why. They already trust you and want what you are selling.

Let’s suppose you are selling an ebook or report on how to get started in the dog training business. In addition to that product, you could also sell a workbook complete with checklists, a teleseminar series, a coaching program, and a certification program.

Virtually any type of business, whether you sell to retail consumers or only wholesale, whether you provides services or products only, can make use email marketing.

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This article will examine pre-existent copywriting structures and discuss why you use them. There has been a lot of copy written and there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. This article will specifically look at how to write a sales letter, which will has the greatest impact, especially if you’re writing SEO copy.

One school of thought says that your website should be one large sales letter. This could be a great opportunity for you. You can write for off-line and online businesses using a sales letter format.

A sales letter contains three components that are crucial for it’s success. The headline is the first and most read. If you don’t grab your readers attention here then you’re wasting your time. The second component is the offer. This must be explicit so that your reader knows exactly what theyre getting. It must also entice the reader to take action after reading the letter. Finally there is the postscript. The postscript is the second most read portion after the headline. This is where you put an incentive to purchase the product. You should write each section in order. Do not write the whole thing at once, but rather section by section. These simple guidelines will help you produce an excellent sales letter.

If you lack experience as a copywriter and want more structures and patterns, then you should follow the experts. Dan Kennedy is a great copywriter that has written some excellent books on copywriting. This will be extremely helpful.

Hopefully this advice has helped you better develop your skills as a copywriter. The key is to follow the patterns already established and build your own creative spin into your work. Don’t reinvent the wheel when writing. This will result in weak sales and more work. Use the structures that have already been proven successful. This will help you become a better and more successful copywriter.

This article will discuss the average salary for an employed or freelancing copywriter.

Employed copywriters can earn a little or a lot based on their skill level and how well they sell themselves. The magazine Advertising Age found that the average salary for a copywriter in 2005 was around $60,000 after bonuses. (taken from http://www.collegeboard.com)

The income for a freelance copywriter is more difficult to estimate. Some charge their clients for each project while others charge an hourly rate. To help you better understand what a freelance copywriter can make, here are some rough figures from 2005: Freelancers generally charged $1000 to $2000 for a lead generating sales letter and $300 to $400 for a website.

Copywriting can be very lucrative, especially since two out of every five copywriters earn between $50,000 to $100,000 a year. Make sure to invest in those survey results, they will help you immensely and keep you from undercharging yourself.

These figures are all a median from those surveyed, so if you have technical knowledge in a particular field that others don’t, then you could earn significantly more money. If you take some time to increase your knowledge and skill level, then you will develop a competitive edge and earn more money.

Hopefully this article helped you better understand what you could earn as a copywriter. If you want more information and more specific numbers then go to the link listed above and purchase some survey results, this will help you immensely.

It is important to note that these rates are a median and only give you an idea of what you could charge. Your exact rates will depend on the market, your expertise, and how well you sell yourself.

20 Ways To Increase Your Traffic And Sales Using Free Follow-Up Autoresponder Courses

An autoresponder course is a group of articles or information set up to be sent out separately over a set period of time by e-mail. People just e-mail your autoresponder to receive the free course and it is sent out automatically over time. You can find free follow-up autoresponders to use by typing it into any search engine. Below are ten ways to use them to increase your traffic and sales.

1. Offer your course as a free bonus for purchasing one of your main products or services. People will buy your products quicker when you offer a bonus.

2. When you write and give away a free course you will become known as an expert. This’ll gain people’s trust and they will buy your main product quicker.

3. Allow others to add your free course to their own product packages. Their customers will see your ad when they purchase.

4. People love to get freebies. A free autoresponder course is perfect. They will visit your web site to get the free valuable information.

5. Allow people to receive your course for free, if they give you the e-mail addresses of 3 to 5 friends or associates that would be interested.

6. Allow other people to give away your free course. This will increase the number of people that will see your ad in the course.

7. You could trade advertising space in your course for other forms of advertising. It could be banner ads, e-zine ads, web site ads, etc.

8. Gain new leads by having people sign up and give you their contact info before they can receive your autoresponder course.

9. Give away the autoresponder course as a free gift to your current customers as a way of letting them know you appreciate their business.

10. Give away the course to people that join your affiliate program. This will increase the number of people that sign-up.

11. Make money selling advertising space in your course. You could charge for small classified ads or sponsor ads.

12. Get free advertising by submitting your course to freebie web sites. This will increase the number of people that will see your ads in the course.

13. Make money by selling the reprint rights to those people that would like to sell the course. You could make more money by selling the master rights.

14. Hold a contest on your web site so people could win your course. You will get free advertising when you submit your contest to free contest directories.

15. You’ll gain valuable referrals from people telling others about your course. Word of mouth advertising can be very effective.

16. Make money cross promoting your course with other people’s products or services. This technique will double your marketing effort

17. Increase your e-zine subscribers by giving your course to people that subscribe to your e-zine. This’ll give people an incentive to subscribe.

18. Allow your affiliates to use the free course as a promotional tool for your product. Each lesson could include their affiliate link.

19. Promote other businesses affiliate programs you join with your free autoresponder course. Include a different affiliate link on each lesson.

20. Advertise a different product or service on each lesson. If you only have one, use different emotional response ads on each lesson. —-

If, like me, you have a website that you spend hours of your time developing, you may also be wondering why so few people come across it. It can certainly be frustrating after the effort you invested in it. The graphics look fantastic, the menu makes sense, the text is clear and easy to read, there’s plenty of content, and of course the actual product or service you’re offering is good. Of course, no one expects overnight success - it takes a little time for the search engines to find you, and unless you’ve invested heavily in marketing and advertising using billboards, posters and so on, then obviously it will be a while before your site is even found.

But once you can see a trickle of people starting to dribble through to your website, you may wonder why it isn’t a torrent. Perhaps next week? Or next month? You start seeing your creation as an investment rather than an overnight sensation that will see you retiring by the end of the month. Clearly people are starting to find you, and perhaps you have had a few comments or a few orders, but what else have you done to try to improve the popularity of your site and the overall number of visitors it receives?

You may have spent some time thinking about the keywords used throughout the pages of your site, since you are almost certainly aware of the fact that these will help the big search engines locate your site and evaluate its relevance. Clearly being listed on Google is a significant step, but this in itself is in no way going to guarantee a flood of eager customers desperate to part with their cash. What matters more than being listed, is where you are on the list.

When people search the internet using a search engine, the list of results is ordered by rank. The higher the rank of your site, the closer to the top, on the first page, your website will be. If people enter the keywords ‘alcohol free whiskey’, and this is what your site sells, then you would hope that your website would be fairly near the top, or at the top, and definitely on the first page of results. On Google, a search for ‘alcohol free whiskey’ actually brings up 216,000 results, which at ten results per page is well over 21,000 pages. Incredibly, only 3% of people ever look past the first page of results. That means that 10 website owners will enjoy the company of 97% of visitors, whilst 215,990 website owners will only ever see 3% between them.

So what is it that helps you get to the top of your keyword search rank? Is there a single big secret that many SEO companies are aware of, and will only tell you for a huge fee? Certainly many companies do seem to suggest that they alone have the answer, and that only by going through them will the Golden Secret be revealed to you, and suddenly your site will rocket to the top. In fact, there are three things wrong with this. Firstly, there is no single solution - it’s a combination of many varied factors. Secondly, no one single company can ever offer guarantees, promises or assurances that your site will be at the top, or near the top - they can try, and almost certainly your site will rise, but this depends on other factors beyond anyone’s control. This might, for example, be because your website is in a mass market, such as insurance. With hundreds of thousands of keyword competitors, getting near the top is a huge endeavour, whereas if you’re selling rainbow coloured light bulbs then there is likely to be much less competition, and so more chance you’ll rise more quickly, and further. The third thing is that any rise is never going to be overnight, and any progress can take weeks, if not months or even years.

So what are these factors which affect the rank of your website? There are many different ways to win over the approval of a major search engine. The big factor used to be keywords, with search engines scanning through the pages on your site and identifying the relevant keywords. Unfortunately, many people took advantage of this and simply inserted great blocks of keywords, whether they were relevant or not, just to grab the attention of the search engines. This technique is more likely to lower your rank these days. One of the biggest factors is how many websites link to yours. Obviously if several hundred sites all have a link encouraging people to visit yours, that tells the search engines that your site must be pretty good, and so increase your rank.

There are many free things available on the internet, and many good services that cost money. I rarely come across a good service that I’d recommend, which also happens to be free, but if you’re a website owner like me, and are interested in knowing how your site’s doing as far as the search engines are concerned,it’s great to find a free service that offers interesting and valyable information on how you’re website is ranked in the major search engines. As the work is done manually, the results are very thorough. Of course, they’ll offer to do the work for you, but if you’ve already built your site, the chances are that you’ll be quite happy making the changes they recommend.

It can often be quite obscure little changes that you wouldn’t think of - such as the position of the text on the page, the number of menu links and outside links you have, the length of your sentences and so on. Knowing what you can do to help get your website noticed is a massive step toward getting up towards that golden first page. I have a number of websites, and I can’t say I have always tried every single bit of advice, but even by applying a few which suit me, I have noticed that my sites are climbing higher. Don’t forget, no one ever gets overnight top rank placement, and your eventual position will depend largely on the number of keyword competitors you have, but I’d certainly recommend getting your site checked out, after all, it’s free!

Mobile CRM is on the rise in the world of CRM and demand is growing as companies and employees are demanding access to crucial information in real time. Allowing for a more versatile, mobile workforce and faster access to information, mobile CRM is here to stay. Here are the top ten reasons your company should consider implementing a mobile CRM system.

Sales professionals can access data in real-time, so it is always the most current, up-to-date information available. If you need to know about a client or lead, you can find what you need to know immediately via phone, laptop, PDA, or other mobile device.

The information flow is two-way. Salespersons can access databases and at the same time the information that they captured is relayed back to the central database which gets updated and stays current. Mobile CRM is web-based and with its browser-based interface it can be run on a number of devices such as PDAs, pocket PCs, mobile phones, etc as well as different operating platforms.

Leads don’t get cold because there will always be someone to pick up the slack. Mobile CRM also makes it easier to ensure the lead gets nudged down the pipeline gently but effectively and ends up in the correct place.

Companies that have deployed mobile CRM report a reduction in paperwork and redundant data entries; however there are issues that are preventing mobile CRM from truly taking off. Broadband is still not ubiquitous although Wifi, WiMax, and VoWLAN are helping to overcome the connectivity problem. Another challenge is getting employees to successfully navigating the learning curve associated with any new technology. Security is another issue. Data encryption, strong passwords, placing the mobile CRM server on separate virtual LANs, etc are some of the things that need to be done to ensure data protection; however these should not come at the cost of productivity or speed of execution of an activity.

Mobile CRM is amazingly easy to use and takes much of the stress off of professional sales people. It allows them to stay in touch and get new updates. Mobile CRM is especially conducive to sales professionals who travel a large part of the time. Because you can use any mobile device, traveling isn’t difficult, and it’s far less stressful. If you suddenly remember something you have to find or look up, forget a client’s information, or any other number of scenarios, mobile CRM can be the way you solve the problem.

Mobile CRM offers a competitive advantage because it offers a way to reach more customers than just using a traditional CRM system. It is quickly growing to be one of the de facto methods of CRM outside of the workplace. Once priced ridiculously high, mobile CRM systems are now more reasonably priced, and this has added to their growth in popularity.

Some upgrades are rip-offs, some are bug-ridden, some are too minor to worry about, but some are usually must-haves. Dreamweaver upgrades tend to fall into this last category.

Since web development is constantly evolving, each new release of web programs like Dreamweaver tend to contain features which are introduced in response to changes and new technologies in the way websites are constructed and elements that can be placed on web pages. Dreamweaver is now an Adobe product, since the acquisition of Macromedia. So let’s see what Adobe have done to enhance what is probably the most widely-used web development tool in the world.

Since the release of Dreamweaver 8, way back in 2005, the use of cascading style sheets (CSS) in web page layout has become widely recognised as the way forward. However, CSS page layout coding can be a little daunting for new web designers. Dreamweaver CS3 includes a wide range of customisable CSS layouts which include useful comments for inexperienced developers explaining how the designs function. The layouts may be used not only to create individual pages but also Dreamweaver templates.

Dreamweaver CS3 has useful new features for transferring CSS code from one location to another. You can move an internal CSS definition from inside an individual page to an external style sheet. It is also possible to take inline CSS (located next to the item it described) and transfer to an external style sheet.

Dreamweaver CS3’s browser compatibility check allows developers to target specific versions of all the major browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Safari) and generate a report detailing CSS-related issues with elements on the current page.

Dreamweaver has long had great features for integrating content with Fireworks. This new version extends a similar level of integration with the more widely-used Adobe Photoshop. Documents, slices or selections can be copied from Photoshop and pasted straight into Dreamweaver. An Image Preview window then appears in which compression and optimisation settings may be specified before the image is saved.

As well as enhanced support for CSS, Dreamweaver now allows the inclusion of elements of the new Ajax technology which uses JavaScript to add a new level of interactivity to web pages by updating the page with elements from a server without having to reload the page. Dreamweaver’s implementation of Ajax is via the Spry framework. This is a collection of JavaScript-based code which provides a simple way for web designers to add Ajax content to their pages without having to type a line of code.

Dreamweaver CS2 has several different kinds of widgets. For example, there are menus and submenus which allow developers to design complex navigation systems which would otherwise take days to code. Then there are form validation widgets which check the content entered by a user into form fields. There is also a widget for creating a tabbed interface which displays different content in the same place depending on which tab the user clicks on.

Spry effects can be applied to wide range of HTML components and include the ability to fade, highlight, zoom and shrink page elements in response to user interaction.

Spry Data sets are JavaScript objects that display data from an XML source in an HTML table. There is also a useful drill-down capability whereby users can click on summary information displayed in rows of a table to display detailed information in another region of the page.

Dreamweaver CS3 is also the first version of the program to offer compatibility with Intel-based and PowerPC Macintosh systems. It also runs on Windows XP and Windows Vista systems.

The internet grows exponentially with every minute. Many businesses wanting to engage in the advertising wars played out online are hoping to win over a large portion of their target market. In the process, our goal is to work out the level of intensity of our competition so we can zero in on the most effective strategy to slowly increase the number of users and visitors.

Every businesses goal is to increase the number of visitors coming through the door. It is the role of the business structure to successfully convert these visitors into buying customers. Without this fundamental rule we don’t have the business to begin with. Many online businesses may base their advertising model around paid advertisements on high exposure commercial websites. If high traffic volumes are established with a proven advertising model, these commercial advertising sites can be a great way to bring immediate, targeted traffic to your website within the shortest possible time. Similarly, pay per click (PPC) is proving to be a highly lucrative advertising model that if done right can generate large volumes of traffic with zero start up costs. This pay per visitor model offers instantaneous satisfaction with the only downside being the continual capital outlay to maintain your exposure to the market.

These two methods of advertising are good when you’re looking for a quick boost of direct web site traffic in the search engines paid query results. In direct contrast to organic search engine ranking, you are able to expose your website quickly to a potentially huge consumer market without investing long hours and the associated learning curve for more traditional organic search engine ranking.

Query results in search engines, or the matches found by a search engine to the keywords entered by the user, are important because of the fact that these are the most effective tools through which users try to access information on the Internet. The volume of information existent on various topics is simply overwhelming, which is the reason why people make use of search engines to do for them the dirty work of going through Internet clutter and give them results ranked on the basis of relevance to what they are exactly looking for.

PPCs may also increase the probability of a website being ranked higher in the overall paid search results. Google Adwords, for instance, already creates an sophisticated ranking system within their advertising system, so that even in prioritizing which advertisements are published in a particular page, the ones with greater relevance is made accessible to the public.

The primary aim should always be to provide quality information that is highly relevant and targets keywords that relate to your websites topic. Your seo marketing should always be focused towards studying just what keywords yield traffic and structure your website to meet this demand.

However, with the Internet being as competitive as it is, it is not enough to employ just one of the many methods to increase traffic. Another means that has been acclaimed in truly delivering increased traffic into the website within the framework of SEO is link-building. Link-building is the process through which one website is advertised in another website dealing with a similar field of interest. Usually, an exchange of links can happen, which can provide mutual benefits to both businesses.

Link building for your website can single-handedly offer the best returns for your SEO program. Over time, the experience gained will make you more effective at choosing potential link partners and other websites to publish your links on. The returns for link building can be twofold, the first is direct page visits from the link on relevant websites, the second is the search engine ranking boost that comes from attaining relevant links.

If the primary reason for attaining back links to your website is to prove to the search engines that you are an authority site, then it stands to reason that you must also create the impression of expertise and knowledge with everything that you do. With this impression comes an increase in perceived value and trust. This trust and increased authority will as a result attract more web sites wishing to be affiliated with you. And so the cycle continues…

Another avenue for building your link campaign, is to review products, articles, and services offered by other companies on their website. This vote of confidence provides a very good reason for these companies to link back to your website, as in doing so, makes their products and services see more attractive to their potential customers. The mutual benefits of this technique can be highly rewarding for both parties.

Integral to the decision of building links with websites is the determination of the suitability of a particular website to become a link partner. Emphasis is placed on decent linking partners that more or less practice the same brand of ethical SEO as your own. Moreover, targeting possible link partners who will be amenable to the idea of exchanging links is very important. By targeting relevant link-building sites, the business gets a better opportunity to gain real link partners who will eventually link the business to their website.

Make your site relevant, congruence and reputable for possible link building campaigns. Through effective link building, businesses search engine ranking will increase.