Thursday 21 February 2013

Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant is a self-employed business owner who provides administrative support to their clients. The clients may want a one time job, or a long term position.  A virtual assistant may do secretarial duties, such as writing up letters and memo’s or contacting other business people for the client.  Other duties a virtual assistant may cover are customer service, messaging services, email blasts or autoresponders, email support, fax paperwork, and many other duties.  A virtual assistants duties really does vary drastically.

There are a few key attributes to a great virtual assistant.  Good grammatical skills are necessary; no spelling errors are going to be acceptable.  A virtual assistant must be extremely organized because no one will hire an assistant who does not have their files arranged and handy.  A virtual assistant with a wide range of skills is sought after.  Being technically savvy is essential especially when you are a virtual assistant because it is what people expect and need in such an internet related business world.  Also, in this technological world, you must be able to take directions, understand them without too many questions or issues, and get the work done, perfectly.  A virtual assistant must be on their toes, on the lookout for unforeseen issues that may have been overlooked.  Virtual assistants have great communication skills, negotiating rates, deadlines, and project plans.  But, unfortunately, these assistants must make sure that they make time for work.  It is really easy to get caught up in housework or the kids and not set aside work time at home.  When deadlines are missed, it looks bad on your reputation as a virtual assistant.

A virtual assistant can make their own hours, as stated before, but they can also make their own rates, which is excellent.  They do not have to settle for getting paid too little for a big job.  They do not have to worry about long commutes, and therefore expensive gas, leaving their children at daycare, and stressful co-workers and bosses.

Tuesday 19 February 2013

Knowing How To Blog with WordPress


Blogging with Wordpress

Wordpress is one of the many options available to bloggers who are looking for free software online which makes it incredibly easy to publish their own blog. This software is easy to use, provides a variety of templates and offer excellent support to bloggers. There are many options available to bloggers and other blogging programs may be better known and offer slightly different features but many bloggers are quite pleased with Wordpress. This article will offer some useful information for bloggers who are considering starting a blog with Wordpress such as reasons to choose Wordpress, tips on starting a blog and information about the support offered by Wordpress. Based on this information as well as their own research bloggers can decide whether Wordpress is right for them or whether they should seek out a different blog network.


Reasons to Choose Wordpress

There are many great reasons to choose Wordpress to start a blog. Some of these reasons include a great variety of templates, the ability to categorize and tag posts easily, features such as spell check, previews and autosave, the ability to post text, audio files and video files, a variety of privacy options and the ability to track statistical data related to the blog in addition to other great features. Some of these features may be more important to some bloggers than others so deciding whether or not Wordpress is right for you will largely be a matter of personal preference. For example bloggers with little or no programming experience may enjoy the myriad of templates available on Wordpress while bloggers who are concerned about privacy issues may be more interested in the privacy options available through Wordpress. Carefully investigating these features will help bloggers determine if they should start a blog with Wordpress.


Starting a Blog with Wordpress

Bloggers who opt to start a blog with Wordpress will certainly not be disappointed by the amount of time it takes to start a blog. A blogger can literally start a blog with Wordpress within minutes. This is tremendously important to bloggers who are eager to get started and do not want to deal with a long process to start a blog. The only requirements for starting a blog are a valid email address and a username.

The blogger enters this information into the signup page and receives a password almost instantly. Next the blogger simply has to check his email, follow the activation link provided and use the password provided and the process is complete. The blogger can start blogging immediately.

Later on, you will find out that the journey does not start nor end in there. There are many ways to explore and enjoy more on WordPress. One of the things you can learn in the future is how to clone Wordpress. You can do this by exploring some other programs or software. The thing is, you have the option on what to employ.


Support Offered by Wordpress

For many first time bloggers the type of support offered is very important. This is because first time bloggers may have quite a few questions about the process of starting a basic blog and once they establish a basic blog they may have additional questions about using advanced features and customizing the blog.

Wordpress offers a great deal of support for bloggers of all skill levels. The support offered by Wordpress includes the ability to contact the support staff as well as the ability to receive support from other members through online forums. Although the support staff is incredibly responsive some bloggers enjoy the ability to communicate with other bloggers in forums. This is because the forums are active 24 hours a day and bloggers can find support from peers at any time.

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Generating Traffic and Earning More From Your Site

Whether you have created a website for your business or your website is your business you need people to actually view it in order to get your return on investment. But how does one do this? Well like anything out in the Internet there is no "one size fits all" solution for your website. You need to employ a multi-pronged attack in order to get more traffic to your website. Hopefully I will show you how to dramatically increase the traffic to your website using these simple yet effective techniques.

The first technique is to actually pay for advertising for your website. This can be done using such services provided by Google, Yahoo and MSN where you pay to have your website listed in their sponsored links section when a user searches for a key term. This will get traffic to your website almost immediately. Always refine each campaign to see if you can maximize the return on investment for each time you place ads on these search engines.

The second technique is to write articles and content. Have content on your website that pertains to the products and services you are selling. Make sure you check your website logs to see what terms people are searching for and then make sure you write about those topics. Do not have enough time to do this yourself? A good way around this is to use a freelance service such as eLance.com or rentacoder.com. You could even partner up with a student at a local college or university to write the articles for you. The student would benefit by gaining the valuable experience and would gain writing samples for their portfolio. This is by far one of the most effective techniques of gaining traffic to your website. You must also make sure you publish some articles to those syndication sites that will allow other website owners to benefit from your experience and knowledge.

The third technique I would recommend is to submit your website to the top three search engines. These search engines include Google, Yahoo and MSN. By doing this you will get increased traffic by users searching for content that you have developed using the above technique.

The fourth technique is to partner up with someone else on the Internet that is selling similar complimentary products. Exchange links with these partners in order to increase your rankings on the search engines. be careful who you partner up with and make sure they are reputable in the field as you are attaching your name to this person or company and what they do could adversely affect you as well.

The fifth technique is to find newsgroups that pertain to your products or services and participate in the conversations. Try not to oversell your products or services as you will most likely be banned from them and really create a bad impression for yourself. Rather, only answer the questions that people ask to make yourself the true expert in the field so that people will visit your website.

These techniques are low cost in order to get people to visit your website. While not the only techniques out there for driving traffic to your website these are some of the most effective techniques that will help establish your website as a true leader in the field.

Friday 8 February 2013

Unfortunate Age Discrimination in the Current Employment Act


The first thing a lawyer will tell you when you approach him in this matter is that you can sue somebody, if you happen to be the kind of person that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act applies to. Well, that might sound like stating the obvious, but it isn't.

The thing is, it doesn't apply to everyone who is of the right age (which would be the age of 40). There are some glaring exceptions, and in at least one instance, they actually allow age discrimination.

That exceptional instance covers executives. An executive who makes more than $44,000 a year, if he isn't doing a good enough job and the company suspects that it's because of this age, can find himself forced to retire. And he can't sue under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

And there are other people who can't sue too – people like police officers or firefighters or air traffic controllers. These people need to be alert and quick-minded. They can't sue if they're forced to retire because of they've reached a certain age. And oh – if your employer runs a really small company – less than 20 people – then you can't sue.

That said, there are  going to be so many cases filed under the Age Dscrimination in Employment Act starting now. Social Security has changed its rules. You can't begin to draw your full benefits until a higher age now. That will mean that people want to stay on at their job for longer. And companies are not going to like this often. They will try to push them out sooner.

If you win upon suing the compensation you get can be substantial. You wil get overtime pay, back pay, front pay, emotional distress compensation, and they'll multiply all these as punishment for how they violated the law. If all you want is to be rehired, the law will make them do that, too. In addition
to giving you all of these.

There are no real figures on how many discrmination violations occur in this country. But the bad economy means the that there are plenty of them. Employers have their pick of younger and more energetic workers at all times for less pay.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that over the past five years, complaints made over age discrimination have jumped up 20%. People over 40 who have been laid off are just not getting a second chance. They think that it's because of their age. These people sue a lot.

Usually, you can begin to suspect age discrimination if at an interview, you're asked something about your age or if the interviewer says something about how you are probably not technologically competent.

Avoid These Brutal Affiliate Marketing Mistakes


Myths concerning affiliate marketing are appealing and attractive.  People who do not know the entire system the wrong way round are prone to believing that it is something capable of giving them great fortune overnight.  Stories concerning affiliates who earn tremendous amounts of money swim in their heads, and while these stories are as true as they can be, there are those who believe that they are going to have the same fortune once they indulge in this particular business.

It is true enough that affiliate marketing is financially rewarding.  People who have gone through everything to be able to succeed in this business are reaping the seeds that they untiringly sowed.  Many of them enjoy the kind of existence that was not possible for them to have had under ordinary circumstances.  Having gone through the A-Z of affiliate marketing, however, these people are the ones who know that while such business is lucrative, there is absolutely no easy money in it.

Ignorance of this fact is one of the main reasons why there are people who fail miserably in the internet business.  There are those who believe in myths concerning the easy money involved in systems such as affiliate marketing.  They do not know that there are those who have wasted time, effort and too many resources in trying to pursue the life of ease that they believe this business will give them.  And so they go into affiliate marketing armed with nothing but myths and fantastical notions of wealth swimming in their consciousness, never realizing that they bound to make mistakes that would prove to be their downfall.

What may be the reason why in businesses such as affiliate marketing, many are called but few are chosen?  Perhaps the answer lies on the fact that many affiliates make mistakes that result from their ignorance of facts concerning how the entire business runs.  Affiliate marketing is not as simple as an affiliate promoting a merchant’s wares through his website and getting paid for it.  It is also about knowing the market and the customers at hand.

Discovering what the most common mistakes affiliates make can perhaps dispel the gloom about myths surrounding affiliate marketing by correcting some wrong notions about it.  It might also be able to make those concerned understand that like any other business, there are dos and donts involved in this one if they want to make each of their steps count.  The first common mistake affiliates make is their lack of knowledge concerning principles involved in their business.  This refers to the affiliate’s knowledge of search engines in particular.

Affiliate marketing involves advertising, and advertising through the internet could not have been better without the existence of search engines.  What every affiliate has to do is to make these search engines his best friend through studying search engine optimization closely.  This way, he is able to know what to do in connection with building a better website to ultimately use for his business.

The second is that affiliates make the mistake of stuffing their sites with banners that do not provide enough information about the product at hand.  The best way to battle this mistake is to provide good content hand-in-hand with such banners.  It is important for customers to know and understand the features of a product, and good content will be able to help them realize this goal.

The third is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting only one product.  Consequently, customers are not given enough options to choose from.  There is also the risk of generating fewer sales as compared to having more options for customers ponder about.  It is always better to give them a few better alternatives than to give them only one.

The fourth is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting too many products.  As a result, customers are confused and end up beyond making a choice.  It is perhaps good to give them only the best choices.  This is because it is ultimately up to them to judge which one is the best for them to patronize.

All in all, affiliates that are doomed to fail in this business are those who do not exert enough effort to understand everything involved in the industry that they are in.  Knowing their path step by careful step will prove to be beneficial to them, as there is no other way to succeed than to go through any path slowly but surely.