Business Web Portal

About twenty five percent of the so-called opportunities on-line are scams. These programs are designed to do one thing, relieve you of your money or personal information. Don’t be a victim of their treachery. Here are some points to watch out for when signing up for an on-line opportunity.

1.Look for contact information, a phone number or e-mail address, presented on their title page, not buried several layers deep. Don’t assume that the phone or email address is good, check them out. If you don’t get the response the way you expect then run the other way.
2.Never give out your address, birthday, social security or drivers license number. There is no legitimate reason for any on-line company to have this information.
3.Always use either an on-line check or a payment processing firm like “PayPal” There is to much personal information available from your credit card to use it without a thorough knowledge of the company you are dealing with.
4.No one or no single company can protect you and your assets better than you can. A little common sense works just as well on line as off line, if it sounds to good to be true it is.

It’s important to note some legitimate companies may violate one or two of the above points but if you find a company violating all four points, and you do business with them, then the odds are not in your favor and you stand to be disappointed at best.

Knowledge is power. Join the Business Web Portal and stay on top of your on-line ventures.

First of all in order for me to read your message you must get it to me. To do that you must pass my Spam Filter. I will give you a hint, if the email address sending the message has the words Return, No Reply or SMPT in it then I will never see your offer and you are wasting your time. On the other hand if you send from a verifiable address then I will open and read your offer. Even if I have no immediate interest in what you present I will still read your message. I am always looking to see what others are doing with their email marketing.

Once I start reading your email I am looking for various elements and how they are being used. If your message is full of graphics and endless testimonials then I note your product or service on my list to explore and I will contact the manufacture or affiliate publisher to see if they are interested in actually selling their product or do they just want to continue making mind-numbing email commercials. You see that type of email is pretty much nothing more than free advertising for the publisher. There counting on you to burn up your targeted lists with their adds. And even though this not technically Spam that’s exactly the way it will be treated by most people.

So what do you need to do? First, be honest, a proper “from” email address and a “subject” line that will tell me what it is you want from me. Then a simple text based message with the necessary information up front. A product description and a price, you can add things like testimonials and images by providing me with links to that information. Your email should reflect what you would tell me if we met face to face for the first time. Basically let me make the following comparison: When I use a search engine, it should be like watching TV full of graphics, color and content. When I read an email it’s like having a personal conversation with someone, brief and to the point.

Learn more about emailing, search engines and business websites at the Business Web Portal

I have to admit it, I don’t like rejection. I suppose that makes me less of a salesman but that’s OK because I consider myself to be more of an Internet businessman than any one thing. I also don’t like to waste time, mine or yours. So that’s why my email lists are short. In fact the shorter the better. I gather the names on my list from carefully crafted email catch web-pages and from targeted list builders. So if you have received an email offer from me then it’s because I have done some research on you and I’m pretty sure I have an offer you can use. Let me give you an example:

The Business Web Portal is one of my main websites that I own. It gets it’s members primarily from search engine responses to targeted keywords. But in the beginning I didn’t want to wait for the search engines so I tested the market with an email strategy that I use today. Using a targeted list builder program that searched the Internet for the addresses of people who had an interest in on-line businesses, I compiled a list of about 2,000 names and I sent them an e-mail inviting them to join my website. At the same time I prepared a second list of about 1,500 names from responses to one of my name gathering sites. That list was mailed an invitation letter as well and will receive a new letter each week for five weeks. After a list is five weeks old it is no longer fresh and chances are that the names on the list have already received the information they needed to make a buying decision so I discard that list in favor of a new one. Over that five week period if I make enough on the website to keep it then I let my SEO take over and stop the mailings. You might wonder why stop the emailing at all? Because when it’s done right it is very time consuming so as a webmaster, primarily, I would rather be doing other things than compiling email lists and writing fetching emails.

If you have any questions about how this could work for your business then join the Business Web Portal at http://www.BusinessWebPortal.com and leave me a comment with your question.

P.A. Yager

Those of you who know me, know that I’ve been involved in the computer and internet business for a long time. My business has always been to work with other businesses to develop systems that will enhance their productivity. In 1984 I had a client who gave me some advice, he said “Always watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.” I understood him to mean that if I were frugal and watched how much I spent on business needs that I would enjoy a good profitable business. I have tried, though sometimes with great difficulty, to follow that advice. Now I try to pass that axiom along to my existing clients by providing them with products and services for much less than the going rate. Hence the Business Web Portal was born.

In the business world today, the name of the game is “information” and lots of it. The more you know about the things that can effect your business, the better your results will be. Start with a plan. It’s a lot easier to get where you want to go if you have directions. Remember there are a lot of people out there who have their own businesses and are willing to share how they started them with you. You can listen to any or all of them, and you should, but don’t follow their advice. The only one who knows your business is you. Take from them bits and pieces of information and apply them to your own situation to create your own plan. If your business is a success it is because of you and your efforts. If it fails, thats part of business too and you have learned about something that doesn’t work for you.

Apply the advice that was given to me in 1984 to your situation. Let’s say you have 10,000 dollars to start a new business. Instead of spending it all look for areas where you can be a little frugal to start. Maybe in the cost of equipment or advertising or maybe there is something you had planned for an employee that you could do yourself. Whatever it is save part of that startup capitol for a rainy day. You never know what can happen with a new venture so don’t spend yourself into a corner where your choices are limited. A good place to be frugal is in information gathering. The search engines are free to use and if you join a group like the Business Web Portal you can get access to business information, e-books and online tools for nothing more than a membership fee. For additional ideas write to me at P.A. Yager.

Sounds like a silly question. Where have you been for the last 10 years? Of course, everyone needs the Internet. The search engines have made sure of this by providing information and answers to just about everything on every subject. I have seen it all from a third grade homework assignment to a publication on “How to Have Sex with a Porn Star.” Neither of which had an interest to me but they both were returned on a recent search I made on one of the top search engines.

The truth is, many businesses don’t think they need the Internet at all. They couldn’t be more wrong. Lets take an example: A beauty saloon in the West Kendall area of Miami-Dade County, Florida. Owner operated with about ten employees. Open on 5 days per week from 8am till about 4pm or until the last customer is finished. The owner is turning a profit and everyone is making a good living. So what can the Internet possibly do to help? Lets find out.

First of all let me start by saying that the owner and most of the employees are from Jamaica. So naturally they tend to cater to West Indian clients. That being said, and the fact that Miami is the gateway to the Caribbean one could assume that travelers coming to Miami from the islands might find this facility a friendly place to frequent. And you would be right. If only they knew about it and knew how to find it. The islands are small and “word of mouth” works well, so everyone knows about the beauty saloon in West Kendall. But where is West Kendall, and where in West Kendall is the saloon?

The search engines know because the saloon has an optimized website. Even in the remote corners of the Caribbean there are hot-spots. The Internet is not called the World Wide Web for nothing. And in the Miami area, new customers are finding their way to the saloon by searching the Web. All this has had the effect of insuring a steady stream of new customers who in turn become walking billboards for the saloon throughout the Caribbean and South Florida.

Find out more about why your business needs to be on the Internet at the Business Web Portal at:
http://www.BusinessWebPortal.com

Automated websites, auto-responders for email campaigns, dynamic content generation, auto-pilot marketing. Where does it end? It doesn’t. That’s the nature of the Web. Everything is automatic. But, let us not forget that the whole idea is to involve as many humans as possible. We need them to respond to our information, to make a decision, or to simply remember our input into their lives. The problem with automating our entire on-line business is that we loose that personal touch, and like it or not, all human contact requires a degree of personal contact to convey the intangibles, like honesty, that can trigger a buying decision. So what are we to do? Simple, look at your business plan. Find some part that you could do manually that might get noticed by your potential customers and try it for a while. Yes, it means more work, but maybe an increase in sales will offset that extra effort. If not, you can always go back to what you were doing. Let me give you an example of something I’m doing that I feel makes a difference.

I have a number of e-mail addresses that I use to gather e-mail contacts for my marketing lists. In fact if you get an e-mail from me then probably it’s because you sent one to me. Compiling a mailing list from these inquirers could be a simple automated step. But I choose not to look at that way. I read every e-mail I get and if I determine that my service might be useful then I add their address to my next mailing list. I get about 200 e-mails per day so it does take some time to read them all but I will identify about 125 names per day to send a targeted e-mail too. And these names are ones that have impressed me with their offering. I may not be an immediate buyers but I have filed their offer away for future review and consideration as I hope they will do with mine.

This may be a little to time-consuming for you so you might try some other ideas like adding a social network link to your site or even something as simple as a guest-book or bulletin-board. Just remember whatever you decide to use make sure you involve yourself, after all your customers are looking to get to know You not each other.

No one wants to succeed at an on-line business more than you do. Every day you go to your email account to see if you have finally got the information you need to find that right on-line business. But once again all you get is home-based business opportunities that make outrageous claims about how much money you can make for doing nothing but sitting on a beach. Well guess what, the beaches are empty. The only way you will be successful on-line is the same way you would be successful off-line, hard work and lots of it can get you what you want. But what kind of work and what can I expect to make?

The work will be tedious and long and you will come to hate your computer before it’s over. Hour upon hour of searching and compiling data are needed everyday. When you take time off, so does your business, and you make nothing. But you really want this to work so you plod on because you know there’s a golden lining. What will you make? That’s easy, take whatever the company you are working with says you will make and divide it by ten. For example: If they say you can make $1,000.00 per week then in reality you will make $100.00 and then only if you have done the work and only as an average over several months.

There are no shortcuts, no quick fixes or easy opportunities that will hasten your success. But if you learn all you can and do the work you will succeed. Remember it’s not called “work” for nothing. So invest as little as you can to start, take advantage of every opportunity that is of interest to you and get the help you need to be successful. A good place to start is the Business Web Portal at http://www.BusinessWebPortal.com Get the information you need to operate an on-line business before you commit to any kind of program.

Have a new product or service? Not sure if you can market it online? Wouldn’t it be nice to test the online marketplace before investing in a full-blown website with all it’s bells and whistles. Lets suppose that you have always thought that there was an untapped market for old airplane propellers, if only you could reach those buyers. But you’re not sure enough to spend the time and money building and hosting a website. You do have a few options. First, you might decide it’s not a good idea and just forget about it or pass the idea on to someone else. The problem with this is that you will either never know if it was a good idea or you may make someone else rich at the expense of your idea. You might try doing a search of people who are interested in airplane propellers, although this is not going to separate out the buyers you are looking for from the rest. Or maybe you can create a e-mail article and send it to a list of buyers. If only you had such a list. No, the best and easiest thing is to create a single page website with all your contact information and a little content. Host the site in a sub-directory off your main website. Optimize it for the search engines and write and submit an article on the subject to a content provider like http://www.GoArticles.com that will distribute your article to other websites.

Providing you already have a website and you have access to create a sub-directory, and you know how to FTP to that directory. Then it shouldn’t take you more than half a day to create your test site and upload it for use.

You don’t have a website yet? And you don’t know about sub-directories or FTP, or even how to create a website. Then you need the Business Web Portal. As a member, you will not only have access to all the information you need, you will have your own web-page hosted at no additional charge beyond the one-time membership fee of 19.95. All you will need to do is email your information and images to our administrator. We will create your page, host it, and optimize it for the search engines. So you can test your market for almost nothing. When your test is complete you can send us another product or service to test and we will remove your old page add it to a new page for you.

Visit http://www.BusinessWebPortal.com for all the details. While you’re there visit the sample page under the members pages heading to see what you can do. Then take the Join link and get started today.

Everyone knows the Internet is free. This is only true for those who are searching for something. Not so if you are the one being searched. If you are an on-line business then you want customers to search for and find you. And you will pay a price for that ability, and the price you pay will correspond directly to the number of new customers you get. There are things you can do to ease the amount that you will have to pay to get your share of business. Lets explore a few of these things.

First of all you need to be pro-active about your website. Sure it may be one of many tools you have for your business but you will soon see that it could be your most important tool. Don’t leave it all up to some IT guy who may or may not have any idea of what your business is about. Learn about how your site is constructed. Is it straight HTML or is it a BLOG or something else all-together.

Make sure you have input into key elements like the TITLE tag and your keywords and description. Know what the search engines want to see and how they will present it to your customers. Make sure you have a site-map and that you update it on a regular basis.

Not only have fresh content for your customers but fresh content from you! If you have a Blog (and you should) then start writing about what you believe your customers may be interested in. If it’s new and fresh on the web and it comes from you then you are the expert and your customers will have an easy time making a buying decision from your input.

Even if you know nothing about SEO, you need to know that every page and post on your site has been optimized because you know that 90 percent of your business is coming from the search engines and you never know what pages will turn out to be the best landing pages for a customer’s search.

Take the time to learn all you can about doing business on-line and you will save yourself time and money over the long term. Join the Business Web Portal at http://www.BusinessWebPortal.com and get a jump on your competition today.

It’s hard to believe the number of businesses that are using E-mail marketing wrong. First of all e-mail customers should not account for more than 10 percent of your customer base. If you are relying on e-mail for more than this then you’re loosing 90 percent of your potential buyers to your competitors. Those buyers are not waiting for you to send them an e-mail, they are searching for your product or service on a search engine and if your pages aren’t properly optimized and current then those customers are lost forever. The answer there we already know is SEO and fresh content. But lets look at that 10 percent that was the result of an e-mail campaign. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were more of them. A simple change could make a big difference.

Most of the spam filters being used today look at the return address for the words No_reply or Return or some variation of the same. If they find it then that e-mail is immediately sent to the trash bin. So if that is in your return address, then you’re wasting about 80 percent of your time and resources. It’s a simple change, make it, and you will see an improvement in your results.

Further, anytime you receive an e-mail response to your return address, even when it is not a direct response to your offer, read it. It may be a potential customer with a question before he makes a buying decision, or it may be an offer that you are interested in reviewing. Even if it is simply a solicitation it is always wise to review what others are doing.

In short if you are limiting your marketing efforts to e-mail or even if your website is search engine friendly, make sure you are getting all you can from your efforts. It may be the difference between a successful on-line business and a want-to-be. For more help and information visit the Business Web Portal at http://www.BusinessWebPortal.com. Get the tools you need to turn a want-to-be into a successful venture.