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5 Key Tips to Help You Win New Business
If you are going into business for the first time, it can be both exciting and unnerving, yet every year more and more people are making the choice to go it alone. The Small Business Service (SBS), an executive agency of the Department of Trade and Industry, recently published Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Statistics for the UK in 2005, which revealed some interesting numbers. There were an estimated 4.3 million business enterprises in the UK at the start of 2005, an increase of 59,000 (1.4 per cent) on the start of 2004. However, Small businesses (0 to 49 employees), but typically with no employees represented 3.2 million, equivalent to 72.8 per cent of all enterprises.Unfortunately, it is also a well-publicised fact that the key reasons new businesses fail, particularly in the first year, are poor management of cash flow and inability to find a consistent flow of new business. Research by the Small Business Research Trust has established that small businesses represent the overwhelming majority

sure to include your keywords in your Store's description, as this appears in the description meta tag of your eBay Store pages.

Reviews and Guides
eBay Reviews and Guides (http://reviews.ebay.com) are a great way of driving traffic to your listings, from both inside and outside eBay. Articles you write for eBay's Reviews and Guides containing your chosen keywords and linked to your eBay Store have the potential to drive traffic to your listings.

Use Search Tags on Your Content Pages
eBay recommends using "search tags" in your content pages, such as eBay My World, Blogs and Reviews & Guides. Search tags identify topics and concepts in your content. "So if you wrote about Pez dispensers in your blog, you could use tags like "Pez," "dispensers" and "collectibles" to increase your visibility in search results" (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/search-tags.html).

Step 3: Build Links to Stores and Listings
To improve the search-engine ranking of your eBay Store, create as many links to your eBay Store as possible. Encourage your business partners to link to your eBay Store. Enter your Store into online directories such as Listmystore.com (http://www.listmystore.com). Do not ignore the potential of links within eBay to boost your ranking - always link to your eBay Store from your listings and also from all of your guides or reviews.

Step 4: Track Your Performance
Once your have optimized your eBay presence, it is important to constantly

Cashing In On People Who Send You Email
In another article called “Cashing in on people who unsubscribe from your newsletter” I spoke of a way to make money when people leave your mailing list.Well, you can do the same thing if you use a contact form on your website.Non-buyers can’t usually send me an email directly to my email address (unless they reply to an autoresponder or an email from me). They need to fill out a form at this site.Why? It cuts spam down to literally nothing, I used to get thousands of spam emails a week before I implemented this contact form (and it also help arrange the emails for me by subject).I don’t use any fancy system, though you can and I may in the future ad a support desk type system. It’s a simple PHP script that emails me the form information.Ok, back to how we make money with this.The nice thing about this setup besides the previously mentioned ways is the fact that once they submit the form they are at a dead end.So we give them something or a few things to click on!You coul

Despite 50 percent of online purchases being researched via a search engine, most eBay sellers ignore the potential of search engines to drive traffic to their listings. By optimizing your eBay Store, your products could improve their rankings in the search results on major search engines and boost your sales.

High rankings can drive huge amounts of traffic to your products, and even with limited resources, it is still possible to apply techniques that will increase the rankings of your eBay Store and listings.

How Search Engines Work
When looking for a product, a customer visits a search engine and enters a search term or keyword, for which the search engine produces a list of results that it considers most relevant. It is by understanding how this list of results is produced that your eBay page can be optimized. The ranking of a web page for a keyword depends on three things:

* The position and frequency of the keyword on the web page: When producing results for a search term, search engines will rank your pages based on the keywords they contain and their prominence on the page.

* The content of the page's HTML tags: The search engine also looks at the content of the title and meta tags of the page's HTML code. Humans don't read "meta tags" - they are included on a web page to help search engines understand what the page is about, so having good meta tags that describe your website pages is important. An article from Search Engine Watch explains how to use meta tags if you want to dig into this topic in more depth (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931).

* The links going to that web page: Search engines consider an inbound link as a vote of popularity. Google, for example, gives each web page a score of 1 to 10 (called a PageRank) depending on the number and origin of inbound links. For a given search, the page with the higher PageRank will appear higher in the list of search results. Here's how Google explains its PageRank technology (http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html).

When listing on eBay you have direct control over the content - and hence the keywords - you include. However, you can only access the page meta tags indirectly, through configuring your Store and listings.

Step 1: Choose Your Keywords
The first stage of search engine optimization is to choose effective keywords. To select keywords, put yourself in the shoes of your customers and consider what keywords you would enter if you were looking for your products online.

eBay Store traffic reports are useful as they contain the search terms that users are entering in order to find your listings (http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/traffic-reporting-basics.html). Note that eBay Stores are called Shops in the UK.

You can also use Yahoo's keyword tool (http://inventory.overture.com) for popular web search keywords and eBay Pulse (http://pulse.ebay.com) to find popular eBay searches. Choose more general keywords for your eBay Store, and choose product-specific keywords for your individual listings.

For example a PDA seller might choose Palm, Handheld and PDA as keywords for their Store. For the listings they also use the keywords referring to the item model number and features.

Step 2: Optimize Your eBay Presence
Repeating a keyword in a number of different places such as your Store URL, title and item description will increase the search engine's perception of how relevant your web page is to a particular keyword. However, be careful not to go overboard - "keyword spamming" is penalized by the search engines. Your description should also be clear and readable.

Choose Your eBay Store Name
Your Store name appears in your eBay Store's URL and ideally it should contain your most important keywords. For example, a bike Store seller might choose "Mountain-Bikes-UK," which would give a Store the URL http://stores.ebay.co.uk/mountain-bikes-uk.

Optimize All Store Pages
The title you give your product is very important, as it also appears in the "title" tag of the listing web page, so you should include your search engine keywords.

Your product descriptions should also include your keywords. Search engines attach the most importance to words in titles and bolded words, so ensure that you have placed you keywords prominently. For example a good item title would be Palm T3 Handheld PDA New Boxed rather than Palm T3 New Boxed as the latter can not be found for searches for PDA or handheld.

You should also create custom pages for your eBay Store. Custom pages are a set of unique pages you can create or edit for your Store to help showcase items and special promotions, describe the history of your business, etc. (http://pages.ebay.com/help/stores/contextual/managing-custom-pages.html). Be sure and include effective keywords on your custom pages too.

Every seller should have an About Me page, and this is another good place to include your keywords and links to your eBay Store (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/about-me.html).

eBay now has a new feature called eBay My World that goes one step beyond About Me pages (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/ebay-myworld-ov.html).

Optimize Your eBay ID
eBay includes your User ID in the "title" tag of your About Me page and feedback pages. Your eBay User ID should reflect something about the product you sell, preferably including your most important keyword. Try and choose a memorable and individual eBay ID, as this will help customers find your eBay presence by searching. For example an eBay name like "PDA-Wonderland" will be easier to find in Google than "Online-Deals."

Optimize Your eBay Store Keywords
In the "Manage my Store" area, eBay enables the selection of search engine keywords. These keywords appear in the "title" tag for your Store pages, and so it is important that you specify relevant keywords for each page. Also make sure to include your keywords in your Store's description, as this appears in the description meta tag of your eBay Store pages.

Step 4: Track Your Performance
Once your have optimized your eBay presence, it is important to constantly t

Signature Selling: Earning More Business with Great Service
Andy Martin and I were discussing some of the companies with which we strive to emulate. It all started with a couple of trips to a few well-known business models that train employees to treat the customer like a king or queen. You may be familiar with Starbucks, Nordstrom’s, The Ritz Carlton, and FedEx. Each of these fine companies operates a business model that puts the focus on the customer. Why do consumers pay the inflated prices at these places? Why pay $3.89 for a cup of coffee? Or $120 for a tie that elsewhere costs $110? How about $225 a night stay at A Ritz Carlton vs. $175 at a Marriott down the street? The answer is simple: consumers will pay for the overall experience and satisfaction at each of these businesses because of the warm and fuzzy feelings they receive at each establishment.By modeling the companies above, the service levels at First Protective have been taken to the next level, and the loyalty of our top producers is evidence. Paying attention to little details really does strengthen the business

how to use meta tags if you want to dig into this topic in more depth (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931).

For example a PDA seller might choose Palm, Handheld and PDA as keywords for their Store. For the listings they also use the keywords referring to the item model number and features.

Optimize All Store Pages
The title you give your product is very important, as it also appears in the "title" tag of the listing web page, so you should include your search engine keywords.

Every seller should have an About Me page, and this is another good place to include your keywords and links to your eBay Store (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/about-me.html).

eBay now has a new feature called eBay My World that goes one step beyond About Me pages (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/ebay-myworld-ov.html).

Step 4: Track Your Performance
Once your have optimized your eBay presence, it is important to constantly

Bookkeeping For An Artist
Income in and expenses out being recorded into their proper accounts is the essential tasks of bookkeeping. However, each type of business needs special treatments of these items. And the art business has its own unique requirements. If you are an artist then I apologize for being so blunt, but the fact is when you are considering your financial records, you are manufacturer of a product to be sold. And such your “product” is treated as any other manufactured item would be. This means that each of your creations is entered into an inventory account until sold. This is the accounting theory that says you must match expenses with the appropriate revenue.Both the manufacturing and construction industries use job costing to track the expenses incurred for each product assembled or built. An artist’s bookkeeper can take advantage of the job costing tool as well. In the cost of a piece of art work the costs of materials, such as paint, paper, ink, brushes, and miscellaneous small tools should be considered. But if you

general keywords for your eBay Store, and choose product-specific keywords for your individual listings.

For example a PDA seller might choose Palm, Handheld and PDA as keywords for their Store. For the listings they also use the keywords referring to the item model number and features.

Optimize All Store Pages
The title you give your product is very important, as it also appears in the "title" tag of the listing web page, so you should include your search engine keywords.

Every seller should have an About Me page, and this is another good place to include your keywords and links to your eBay Store (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/about-me.html).

eBay now has a new feature called eBay My World that goes one step beyond About Me pages (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/ebay-myworld-ov.html).

Step 4: Track Your Performance
Once your have optimized your eBay presence, it is important to constantly

Leadership and Customer Service - is There a Link?
It’s your first day in a new job.This is the job that you really wanted. The one that you saw advertised and immediately knew was for you. The one that you spent hours crafting an application letter for. The one that required you to beat all the other applicants at interview. The one where you anxiously awaited the postman to see if you’d been successful.New suit. Clean shirt and your favourite tie. Shoes freshly polished. Hair cut just the way your Mum would like it.You’re keen. You arrive early. You greet each new person with a warm smile. Trying hard to build rapport without seeming to be over confident. You go out of your way for customers. There’s a spring in your step and a friendly ring to your voice.Now look around. No matter what job you’re in and no matter how long you’ve been there. Does everyone around you have the energy and enthusiasm of new starters? Or has their energy and enthusiasm dwindled? Are they still there because they love what they do or are they simply there

ter can not be found for searches for PDA or handheld.

Every seller should have an About Me page, and this is another good place to include your keywords and links to your eBay Store (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/about-me.html).

eBay now has a new feature called eBay My World that goes one step beyond About Me pages (http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/ebay-myworld-ov.html).

Step 4: Track Your Performance
Once your have optimized your eBay presence, it is important to constantly

Great Salespeople Know Their Numbers
Great salespeople know there numbers! It is a common fact that the world of sales is not the easiest of worlds to stay in. Quite often, the attrition rate is staggering, depending on the field. However, if you know your field and more importantly know your numbers, you will be miles ahead of your competition.So what does it mean to know your numbers? First, you have to understand the knowing your numbers is crucial to your ability to monitor your productivity. Second, you should know that the majority of salespeople in the word don’t track their numbers, therefore by reading this, you will already be ahead of the majority of your competition.So what do the numbers mean? It is actually an interesting concept that is easy to understand and implement, but you would be surprised at how few people use it.The premise of knowing your numbers is actually how many people that you have to visit or call in order to make a sale. However, there is more to it than this. As wit

sure to include your keywords in your Store's description, as this appears in the description meta tag of your eBay Store pages.

Step 4: Track Your Performance
Once your have optimized your eBay presence, it is important to constantly track your performance and make improvements. All eBay Store sellers have access to traffic reports that allow you to see the keywords used to find your listings and the search engines that driving traffic to your Store (http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/traffic-reporting-basics.html). If you wish to see more in depth statistics, use Sellathon (http://www.sellathon.com), which can give you the traffic data for individual listings and pages.

Conclusion
eBay has set up a section that describes the basics of optimizing your eBay Store for search engines (http://pages.ebay.com/education/SEO-introduction/index.html). Use eBay's tips along with this article to optimize your Store. If your products show up in shopper's search results on Google, Yahoo and other search engines, it's bound to help increase your sales.

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If you are a home business owner, you know the importance of staying motivated. And you also know that, some days, it's more difficult than others. But success is based on consistent and persistent effort, so staying inspired and enthusiastic is an essential key to success. Here are four important tips for keeping motivation high.

Few of us ever had a class or mentor to teach us how to run a business. Unfortunately, 8 out of 10 small businesses will fail because of this lack of experience. In this article, I’m going to share with you some of the common mistakes that small business owners often make. If you’ve fallen prey to one or more of these, it simply means that no one told you about them yet. Once you know, then you can focus on solutions.

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