March 3, 2009

How to Jumpstart your Business with a Press Release



Do you want to advertise your business without having to invest a fortune to do so? If you think this is not possible, you are wrong. A press release does exactly that. You can jumpstart your business with a press release. For this, you have to learn the basic tricks of writing a press release that is effective in launching your business on the fast track.

About a century ago, when the press release came into being as a news-story tool for the first time, nobody thought that the same tool could also serve the purpose of an ad. You may now write a brief but riveting story about your business with all its main features, some of which may be unique or novel, and send it in an established format to the media. If, and only if, the piece is written well enough, the media will allot space or time for letting your story reach their target readers or viewers. A press release is your free tool by means of which you can get plenty of exposure for your business. But remember that your press release must first interest the persons concerned in the media. It should demonstrate its newsworthiness to them. Without it, you might as well forget about the whole effort.

Formatting your press release
A press release always has some common format elements. Its headline is the most important of them, for it has to hook the journalists' attention. Next comes the dateline that tells the when and the where your press release originated. Give an introduction in the first paragraph, say what it is all about. Inform the readers when and where your product is on display. How you are launching the goods or services can also be specified. Summarize what makes your business newsworthy. In the body, mention the need your product or service will fill or what benefits your prospective business customers will receive. Give the necessary statistics and explanation as to how your business will provide help in meeting some physical, economic or emotional needs of the people that it will serve. Include a short background of yourself and your partners, if there are any. In the end, give the name, address, phone number, email address and any other information of the contact person. To mark the closing of the press release, "XXX" was used traditionally, but ### is used nowadays as a common closure signal.

After deciding when you would like to send the press release, consider all the available media outlets like radio, television, newspapers and magazines to select your target medium through which you wish your press release to reach your target audience in your primary market. Ways of reaching a wider secondary market also can be explored.

Besides, you can distribute your press release utilizing some of the several free online resources available for the purpose. For doing this effectively, use keywords properly in order to achieve search engine optimization. News search websites get their feed from 'press release wire and distribution systems' like PRweb.com. When media professionals like journalists, reporters and editors and others, among whom you may include your potential customers, search for news on the news websites using keywords, their searches are likely to land on your online press release.

It is indeed a very good strategy to jumpstart your business with an effective press release. 'Effective' is the key to success in your endeavor.

February 24, 2009

Retaining a Lawyer



If you are a small business owner that has just started a corporation or LLC, one of the more important tasks is to retain a lawyer. While many people wait until their business has grown or until an issue has popped up to retain a lawyer, having a lawyer retained can help you get information fast and help make important decisions. Here are some tips on retaining a lawyer.

There are two ways to retain a lawyer. Many people have relationships with a lawyer before starting a business so they usually know who to call if they have any problems or a quick question or two to ask. If you don't know a good lawyer, it is usually very easy to find one. While it may take some time to find a lawyer in your field of preference that can help you out with immediate questions, it is important once you find a good lawyer to retain him or her.

If you don't have the money for a large law firm or to retain a lawyer, there are many small business services that provide affordable alternatives to retaining a lawyer. Sort of like medical insurance, you can pay a subscription fee for the year in case you need the services of a lawyer. Many services are free, however there are many others that are above the benefits and must be paid out of pocket. If you are starting a business or have a business and need answers or legal assistance, look into retaining a lawyer.

February 18, 2009

Forex Trading



If you are looking for a great opportunity to join thousands of people that trade currencies each day, then you should look into Forex. Forex stands for foreign exchange trading and it is growing in popularity among investors and day traders each day. If you would like to learn more on how many people make a profit with the Forex markets, here are some tips.

Many people have heard lots about Forex, but still don't know exactly what Forex is. What is Forex? Forex is the foreign exchange market. The beauty of the foreign exchange market is that as one currency is sold as a new currency is usually purchased. This leads to one of the largest markets in the world with an average turnover of 1.8 trillion dollars.

You don't have to be a genius to trade foreign exchanges. In fact, you can learn from a multitude of sources the basics of foreign exchange trading. There are many resources available such as books, articles, and web sites that can teach you how trade and offer you a platform to practice trading.

These platforms are simulations, where you can test your foreign exchange trading skills on real life, up to date data. This way you can get a feel for foreign exchange trading before you open an account and start trading for real. Most traders can open an account with as little as $250 and trade real time with all the bells and whistles such as real time quotes, fill and stop loss limit orders and leverage trading. So if you are looking for an opportunity to trade foreign exchanges, check out Forex.

February 9, 2009

Making Money On Your Website



You probably started your business website to increase your profits. That is why you added a shopping cart, and information about your company, right? While this is a great way to increase your profits, did you know that they are many other opportunities online to make money? You will be able to make additional money on your website, provided that you know about the programs that are available to you.

Affiliate Programs

Perhaps on of the most popular affiliate program online today is Google Adsense. Google Adsense is a program provided by the popular Google search engine. It is a pay per click program, which means that each time a visitor clicks on the links that you have placed on your website, you will earn a specific amount of money. The typical amount of money earn per click is 10 cents. Google provides you with all the codes you will need to add the ads to your website. The links are customizable so that the colors and fonts will match your existing website. Once you place the code on your website, the links will then generate to match your content, which means that the visitors visiting your website will be more likely to click on the links, since they were relevant to what they were searching for in the first place.

Another popular affiliate program online is Amazon. Amazon allows you to sell specific products on your website for profit. The amount you make is typically a percentage of the amount the person pays for the item. Amazon allows you to display as many items as you would like, and does not require any amount of content to do so.

If you are having trouble finding affiliate programs, then you may consider joining an affiliate network. An affiliate network is a website that offers a wide variety of products and services to sell on your website. This allows you to easily search for affiliate program in which you want to market. It also will monitor all of your commissions from the various programs, add it to one account, and then send you one check once the amount in your account exceeded your specified amount. If you have ever tried to manage several affiliate programs at once, you will greatly appreciate this feature.

It is important to look for affiliate programs that offer high commissions. If a affiliate program is only going to give you a penny per sale, then why bother?

You may also want to consider joining affiliate programs that offer tier programs. A "tier" program allows you to not only sell their product or service for profit, but it also allows you to recruit others to do the same. Once you recruit others, you then gain profits for each of their sales as well. A 3 tier program allows you to collect profits for the people your recruit AND the people they recruit. Essentially, you make money off of their efforts.

Setting Your Website Up With These Programs

Placement is one of the most important things when it comes to affiliate advertising. You do not want to clutter your pages with ads, since it will take away from your original content. Instead, you will want to use the ads sparely, and in appropriate places. If a visitor searches for electronics and you post Amazon codes for children's book on the same page, then chances are the visitor will not click on your link.

Like I mentioned before, the Google Adsense ads will self tailor themselves to the content in which the links are found on. If you place a Google ad code on a page talking about Phone cards, then all of the ads will be related to phones. I would only use one Google Ad code per page, to make sure you do not clutter up the page. Plus, a visitor is more likely to click on an ad if they do not feel that they are being bombarded by them.

February 7, 2009

Ways to Get Free Advertising for your Website



If you are a web developer or small businessman, it is tough to spread the word for your web site, product or service. Many people just don't have the budget to spend hundreds of dollars for advertising expenses. However if you are a little innovative, there are many ways that you can advertise your web site for free. Here are some tips.

To get your web site well known first do the obvious, make sure that your web site is optimized and submit it to all the major search engines and directories. While many web developers benefit from ranking high in the search engines, you will most likely need to do more to get traffic to your web site.

A great idea is viral marketing, creating an article or product that contains your back link and advertisement that is then submitted to thousands of people to freely download and post to their sites. Many people create valuable articles with their web site link and advertisement; they then post them on several highly trafficked article distribution sites. Within a few weeks you might see a rise in traffic using this technique.

There are also plenty of banner exchange sites, where you choose to show other peoples advertisement in exchange for others posting your advertisement or your banner on their web site. Banner exchanges do contribute to building traffic.

Another great idea is posting valuable information on web sites. If you contribute to a forum or blog, you can leave your signature which includes your product or web site link. This can also build a good reputation for your products and web sites. So if you want to build your web site but don't have a big budget, try some of these free advertising alternatives.

January 28, 2009

Used Software



Software can be extremely expensive for a small business or an individual. Many software programs can cost hundreds of dollars each and a whole suite of software programs can cost close to a grand. For students, small business owners and individuals that need the power of specific software there is another alternative rather than spending hundreds of dollars or downloading software illegally off the internet. Many people are choosing to buy used software.

Used software is perfectly legal. Used software is similar to buying a used CD. The person that originally owned the software uninstalls the software from his or her computer and sells the entire software, CD, instructions, and all to a new buyer. There is a huge market for used software and you can always find great deals

No matter what kind of software you are looking for, you can usually find it in used form. Windows, MS Office, Adobe Photoshop are all available in used form and hundreds of dollars less than what you would pay normally. Some great places to buy used software are online at auction sites and ecommerce web sites. So if you are looking for great software without the high price, check out used software.

January 27, 2009

Auction Site Automation Software



If you are currently selling items on auction sites such as Ebay and would like to ramp up your sales, you probably will need to automate your auction site business. It is true that you can operate your business manually, however if you start selling more than a half dozen items a day, by the end of the week you can find yourself very stressed. An auction business can be very easy to start, but to continually list items, keep track of items that have been sold, receive payments and ship out items; you can fall behind very quickly. For people that are looking to run a well oiled business, here are some tips to automation.

There are three main types of auction site automation software applications; listing software, payment processing software and shipping software. In order to have a well running auction site business, you usually need these three components.

Listing software can help you list your items when you it fits your business needs. You can list one item or thousands and keep track of all your listings easily and conveniently.

Payment processing software can be a huge help to sellers that make lots of sales. It can be very difficult contacting each person that wins an auction and making sure that they send you the seller a timely payment. Payment processor software automatically sends an email to the buyer and walks them through the payment process. Once a payment is made, the payment processing software updates the file as paid and then can communicate with shipping software.

Shipping software usually grabs paid files and prepares the items sold for shipping. Shipping software can easily calculate postage and insurance, print out labels, and provide tracking numbers for specific packages. So if you want to grow your auction site business, look into auction site automation software.

January 16, 2009

Looking for Items to Sell on Auction Sites



Many people sell items on Ebay as a business, in fact since Ebay started thousands of people have quit their normal day jobs and have become full time auction site sellers. If you would like to supplement your income or even completely replace your day job with a flexible and profit producing auction site business here are some tips on finding great items that sell.

Most people would love to sell on Ebay, but don't know the first thing about what to sell. For many people that would love to have an auction site business the only thing that is stopping them are items to sell, here are some easy ways to find the right items to sell.

The great part about Ebay is that all the information is out there on their pages. Want to know what is selling, just search. You can spend your day searching around Ebay looking at items that are selling and these items can give you great ideas. Not only can you tell which items sell well, but you can see the prices that the items are selling for, how many times each day and when each day they are listing and what type of people are buying these items. Ebay is a treasure trove of great information just waiting to be analyzed.

You can also go to several services that analyze Ebay data and give you a specialized hot list of the top items being sold and special niches that are very profitable. You can also look on forums either at Ebay or around the web that talk about items to sell. So if you are looking for items to sell on Ebay, just do a little research and you are sure to find some great profit producing ideas.

January 14, 2009

Auction Site Tips



If you buy and sell on auction sites, there are a few things that are very valuable for you to know. Here are some tips on making your buying or selling experience more positive.

Auction sites can be great ways to sell your item or find great deals on items that are hard to find, however there are times that you can have a bad experience. To protect yourself from bad experiences here are some guidelines. If anyone contacts you to either buy or sell an item off of the auction site, immediately refuse. Many people get scammed each day because they go off the auction site and send money or send a product to a person with no way to protect themselves from fraud.

Another great tip is to read the description carefully and make sure that you read the return and exchange policy. If there is a question that you have, ask the seller, before purchasing. If you buy a product that is sold as is, don't expect to get your money back. When you bid on an auction, your bid is legally binding, so make sure that you read the description and return and exchange policy. Remember to follow the above tips to have a positive buying or selling experience on auction sites.

January 9, 2009

How To Set Up Your Own Business to Attain Financial Freedom



In recent times, layout by large corporations and businesses have been on the rise. Working for a large corporation would give on the idea that their job is safe and secure, after all, a business needs employees to function. If you are a satisfactory employee, then you should not have anything to worry about, right? Wrong. In the last couple of years, many hard working employees have been laid off for one reason or another. Many companies are starting to send the work offshore, which diminishes jobs in this country. Others are starting to rely on machinery to do the same work that humans did years ago. Whatever the case may be, good economic times, a good job performance, and being employed by a large corporation or business does not ensure that you have a secure job. Often times, these corporations take little or not effort in understanding what effects these layoffs have on the employee and their family. The only sure what to never get fired is be the boss. To be the boss, you have to start your own business.

Now before you get excited and quit your job, you must know that the majority of new businesses fail within the first year of business. This is not meant to scare you, but rather prepare you so that you will not make the same mistakes that the others have made in the past. The number one reason why businesses fail is simply because they do not take the time and effort it takes to properly start a business. They run out of patience and jump ahead of themselves. To start a healthy business, you will have to learn from these other's mistakes, and do it correctly.

You may have some fears when it comes to starting a business. Good. Starting a business is a major life change. With a normal 9 to 5 job, you are able to leave at 5 o'clock and not thing about work again until you arrive in the morning. This is far from the case with a business. You may leave at 5, only to be called back because an employee is having a problem. You may even have to carry work past 5 o'clock and work at home as well. If you have fear, then you are aware of this, and then you will be able to decide if you are up for the challenge.

Now, there are many ways you can learn the process of setting up your own business. There are many business startup books available at your local business store. These books, provided that they are not "get rich quick" schemes, will provide you the detailed information that you need to start a business properly. Alternatively, you may want to talk with a person experienced in this field, whether it be another successful business owner, or the business loan lender at your local bank. You would be surprised at the type of knowledge they would have and the willingness they will have in helping you as well.

It is also important to remember that businesses are not successful overnight. In fact, in may take many years for you to build up your business so that it is profitable. You will want to make sure that you have enough income to not only support the business until it is successful, but also have enough to support yourself and your family. This may mean that you will have to keep that not-so-nice job for awhile. Again, it comes down to patience.