2/04/2009

How To Plan Your Web Site to Maximize Online Sales and Profits

Most businesses fail to plan for online success. Knowing your purpose, audience, and uniqueness are the first steps to developing a successful web site. Follow these three steps to position your web site for Internet profits. Step 1: Determine Your Purpose The first step in planning a web site is to determine what you want to accomplish. Do you want to sell products and services, find new customers, establish credibility, or improve customer service? The purpose of your web site will influence its content and design. Depending on your goal, you may want to provide articles to establish trust, provide a compelling sales letter, a catalog, product information, a secure online order form, and a shopping cart. Step 2: Define Your Ideal Customers, Their Needs and Concerns Many web sites are trying to attract everybody. Don’t make this mistake. Your web site will be more profitable if you focus on the ideal prospects who are most likely to buy your products or services. Ask the following questions to find out who your ideal customers are: - Who wants or needs your products or services? - What is the age range, gender, profession, industry, income level, and education of your ideal customers? - What are your customers’ needs, wants, and concerns? - What problems can you solve for your customers? What problems do your products or services solve for them? - Who will be visiting your web site? - What is the common denominator of your visitors? - Why will they come to your site? - What information do they want? - Are most of your customers computer literate? What computer monitor and screen resolution do they have? What browsers do they use? Do your visitors connect to the Internet with a slow modem or a fast connection such as cable or DSL? Target your web site’s content and design directly to your ideal customers. Attract your target audience with a benefit-oriented headline. Tell right away what your web site is about and what’s in it for them. If they don’t read further, they were not prospects. Make your text large for seniors. Use a conservative design for accountants. Make your design colorful for children. Avoid movies, sounds, and Flash animations if your clients have slow computers and Internet connections. You can dramatically increase your web profits by focusing on your customers, providing information they want, and solving some of their problems. Step 3: Demonstrate Your Uniqueness To be successful with your web site, you must stand out from your competi
tion. The competition is tremendous on the Internet. How many web sites are you competing with? How do you make your site stand out from those other web sites? And more importantly, how can you get your prospects to buy from you instead of one of your competitors? You do that by emphasizing how you’re different and better. Marketers call it "USP" or "Unique Selling Proposition." Instead of copying everyone else, separate yourself from your competition and develop a web site that distinguishes you from all the others. Focus on what makes you unique; attract your audience with a benefit that is different from everyone else’s and provide a distinct advantage or offer. But first, determine what makes your business unique. Here are some questions to help you establish what sets you apart: - Why should prospects buy from you instead of your competitors? - What are the most important benefits or results your customers will get from your products or services? - What do you do better than anyone else? Do you possess hard-to-find or specialized expertise? - Do you offer a free consultation, initial visit, analysis, or better advice? - What makes your services better, more unique, or more desirable than your competitors? - Do you have the lowest prices or the highest quality products in your industry? - Do you provide the fastest service, the strongest guarantee, longest hours, or better follow up? - Do you keep customers informed with newsletters? - Do you target a specific audience? After determining what’s unique about your products and services, you can emphasize this uniqueness on your web site and set yourself apart from your competition. Here are some ways to accomplish that: - Provide your USP, benefits, and site description at the top of the page. - Use words and images to make your site unique. - Target your audience in your headline and first paragraph. - Use benefits that appeal to your audience. Talk their language. - Create a unique design. Design a custom web header and product images, such as an ebook cover or CD cover. Give your prospects a reason to buy from you instead of a competitor’s web site. Study your competition and then be different, look different, and give them benefits the others don’t. Plan your web site for profits. Determine what you want to accomplish with your web site, who your ideal audience is, and what makes your online business unique. Only after implementing these steps are you ready to start developing your web content.

2/03/2009

What Are the Benefits to Refinancing Your Home Loan Online?

Everything seems to happen quicker – “On-line”. When you want a mortgage loan you can search around, fill out an application and shortly afterwards, you can be in receipt of a pre-approval letter via email. There was no telephone call, no waiting on hold for an answer and certainly no driving involved. No Traipsing up and down your high street to visit into each lender, then waiting for an appointment to be seen. It is easy to carry out your home loan refinance by searching here on the internet. The mortgage company will typically contact you quickly and provide you with all the information you need to make progress on your home loan refinance.

Careful research of your home loan refinance means you will be more well- informed and make better decisions. If you are sitting at home on the sofa with your phone book dialling every mortgage company listed, you won’t to know what the current interest rate is. You won’t know what your current lender or its competitors can offer you for your home loan refinance.

Online, you can access a lot of information quickly. - After looking at even a few mortgage loan websites, you will soon realise that when you obtain money with a home loan refinance there are many options. If you are a homeowner, you could raise cash by getting a secured loan, using your house as collateral. This could get you a better interest rate and lower payments. You may decide to change the type of mortgage you have, the choice is yours. There are lots of different types of home loan refinance loans. You can learn about all of them after just a few minutes of searching online.

When applying online, you should soon be able to identify the larger, more reputable mortgage companies who are only too happy to provide you with assistance on your home loan refinance.

You can save money by choosing to go with an online home loan refinance companies because they cut out fees like a valuation or solicitors fee which they often include as part of the loan package. When you are in the enviable position of receiving multiple offers, you will know that you are opting for the loan with the lowest interest rate possible but also the best terms you can possibly qualify for with your home loan refinance. In this way you can really make the most of your options and secure the best deal for you.

You could search around online and submit applications to two, three or even more different lenders without feeling guilty about researching the best deals from more than one company. That way you make can ensure that you are getting the best available quote on your home loan refinance. Often when you start liaising with a mortgage broker in person, you start to feel obliged to continue working with them, even if they aren’t giving you the best service or coming up with the best product for you. . This is not so online. If you aren’t receiving the information that you want, you are able to change to another provider without feeling guilty. Whichever way you want to look at it, the ideal place to choose your home loan refinance is right here where you are, on line

2/02/2009

How to Create a Bibliography in Chicago (Turabian) Style

With Chicago (Turabian) Style, the bibliography page is where you list all of the sources you used to create your paper. You need to follow a variety of formatting rules when listing the sources. The type of source that you're listing determines the formatting configuration that you'll use, but there are a few formatting rules that work for every listing.

A) ALPHABETIZING. When creating the alphabetical list of the bibliography, sort the list of sources based on the last name of the author. When sorting the list, ignore any spaces in the last name. If you have more than one source from an author, sort them by either the dates in which they were created or by placing the titles of the sources in alphabetical order. Just be certain that once you've chosen a sorting preference for multiple sources from one author, you stick with it.

B) AUTHORS. List the author's last name, followed by the first name and middle name, if the author commonly uses it. If you have more than one author for a source, list each one individually. The first author should be listed by last name, then first name. Subsequent authors should be listed by first name, then last name. When listing more than one author, separate them by commas, with the word “and” ahead of the final author in the list.

C) CAPITALIZATION. Use headline-style capitalization with all titles in your bibliography.

D) INDENTION. After the first line of each source, indent each subsequent line about one-half inch, creating a hanging indention for each source.

E) SPACING. You may single-space each entry in the bibliography, leaving a blank space between entries.

I. BIBLIOGRAPHY EXAMPLES

Here are some examples for listing various sources in Chicago (Turabian) Style. (These examples do not follow the indention rules.)

ARTICLES. When using a newspaper or a magazine as a source, list the author, title of the article (in quotations), name of the periodical (in italics), date of publication, and page numbers used.

* Johnson, Thomas J. "Governments Invest in Technology." New York Times, 29 November 2007, B1.

A journal article requires slightly different formatting. Be sure to include the issue number and the issue date ahead of the page number(s).

* Johnson, Thomas J. "The Economic Impact of Technology." Journal of Economic Growth 6 (June 2005): 110-2.

BOOKS. Include the author's name, the book title (italicized), the publisher's location and name, and the date of publication. Do not use the page numbers used as a source in the bibliography.

* Johnson, Thomas J. and Xavier Quincy Smith. Economic Growth in Africa. New York: Jones Brothers Publishers, 2003.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT. Because such a document usually doesn't include an author, list the governmental division in the alphabetical list and italicize the title.

* U.S. Department of the Treasury. Economic Growth Forecast, 2006-2010. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2005.

INTERNET SITE. List the author's name, if known; title of the online article or Web page (in quotations); Web site name; date of publication, if known; Internet address; and date of retrieval (in parentheses).

* Johnson, Thomas J. "Determining Technology's Role in Economic Growth." Economic Growth, August 20, 2006, http://www.economicgrowth.com/johnson/techrole.html (accessed July 20, 2007).

SCHOLARLY WORK. If using a thesis or dissertation as a source, list the author's name, the title (in quotations), the type of paper, the educational institution, and the year of publication.

* Jones, Steven. "Hydrogen Bonding and Water Molecules." Ph.D. diss., State University, 2000.

II. ODD SITUATIONS

Same author, multiple sources. If you end up with several sources from the same author, you may skip repeating the author's name. Instead, use a solid horizontal line to replace the author's name. The horizontal line should be noticeably longer than the hanging indention of the source, probably three-quarters inch to one inch in length. If you have an additional source that lists multiple authors, you will have to enter the original author's name again. The only time you may use the horizontal line is when all of the authors are the same as the previous work in the list. In the four examples below, the first two have the same single author, and the last two have the same pair of authors.

* Johnson, Thomas J. "Governments Invest in Technology." New York Times, 29 November 2007, B1.
* _________. "The Economic Impact of Technology." Journal of Economic Growth 6 (June 2005): 110-2.
* Johnson, Thomas J. and Xavier Quincy Smith. Economic Growth in Africa. New York: Jones Brothers Publishers, 2003.
* _________. Economic Decline in Africa. New York: Jones Brothers Publishers, 2006.

III. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.

Finally, for additional information on formatting sources in a reference list, look at either The Chicago Manual of Style or Turabian's A Manual for Writers. Both books cover a large number of situations for listing sources within a bibliography. The chicagomanualofstyle(dot)org Web site also has a large number of helpful resourc

The Power Of A Co-Creator Pt.1: No Stumbling Blocks For Success

Once we begin to experience the transformation process on the path of enlightenment, we become co-creators with the universe. Before the transformation process, we created out of default, but now as a co-creator, we create with the universe. Ultimately, this means that we have caught the vision of God or Source Energy. What is the vision? The vision is God or Source Energy as you. With this realization, you get the answer to...who am I, what is my purpose, and why am I here?

Experiencing the power of a co-creator brings magnificence to life. One of the most enriching experiences of the co-creator is discovering there are no stumbling blocks for success. Once we have gotten out of our own way—meaning once we have diminished the power of the ego—the illusions of stumbling blocks, hindrances, scarcity, and lack diminish as well. Yes, we realize stumbling blocks are all illusions.

So, what is the first step to experience the power of a co-creator? The first step is overcoming the emotion of fear projected on to us by the ego. Yes, the first step is to get out of our own way. Then, we will discover that success is not fleeting, wealth is not fleeting, and abundance is not fleeting. We will discover that wealth and success are not just for some, we all have a divine right to live in abundance.

As a matter of fact, Wallace D. Wattles, one of the greatest and most prolific New Thought teachers of his time, says in the Science of Getting Rich...Talented people get rich, and blockheads get rich; intellectually brilliant people get rich, and very stupid people get rich; physically strong people get rich, and weak and sickly people get rich.

With this rather colorful knowledge, we understand there is no environment that can prevent our success; the only thing that can prevent our success is getting in our own way.

So how do we get in our own way? We get in our own way through our inability to envision our true desires because we are not allowing our true self in the driver’s seat. When an individual allows the ego in the driver’s seat, illusions about lack and scarcity prevent the attainment of one’s true desires. Only the true and authentic self understands and knows our true desires. Otherwise, the ego hinders our own advances and subconsciously puts stumbling blocks in our way because of fear and complacency.

The truth is fear will cause us to stop in our tracks. This is dangerous for our growth and evolution. Why? It is dangerous for our growth and evolution because we live in a moving, growing, and expanding universe. If we refuse to move forward, then we have no other option than to move backwards. If we refuse to grow, then we die.

The advancement of our soul development requires that we expand and grow spiritually. Allowing the illusions of stumbling blocks to hinder our growth is not living in abundance, it is living in lack. And that’s a place where one can truly lose their soul.