Successful Decision-making Flow

1. Market Conditions

To make a decision making, firstly we should know the information of the market conditions. We can make a research for the market areas about the the specified product demand (click the underlined words to see the example).

2. Demand

Demand, total market and market share.

Demand for a team is determined in three steps.

• The total market size for each market area is calculated. Market outlooks provide a rather good forecast of what is going to happen inthe future.
• The total market demand is devided into different technologies.
• The market shares for each company are determined. The factors affecting the market shares are product features, price, promotion and previous round market share.

3. Production
Global allocation of production is an important success factor in the simulation. You have two production areas that you can use to supply to three market areas. In the long run it becomes important to have a solid production strategy. There are no finished good inventories in this simulation. If you over-estimate your demand and make too high production decisions, the production will be cut automatically. There is an additional cost if production needs to be adjusted during the round. Note that your production will not be increased if you have decided too low capacity utilization. In that situation you will have lost sales.
Production Costs
The factors affecting the production costs are the following

• Basic cost level in the production area
• Production cost function
• Learning curve effect
• Penalty for having too high production target. This happens if you have over-estimated your demand and your production needs to be reduced during the period. However this penalty is not very important factor. E.g. deciding a production target of 100% and actual production being 1% the penalty is about 5% of the production cost.

4. Investments
When you make a plant investment you are committing a substantial amount of money into a long-term investment. You need to make sure that you can pay for the investment with the revenue that you are making from it.

5. Marketing
Decide your marketing mix, namely, product, price, and promotion. These decisions need to be made for each product and market area. Since you have only one product in each market in the beginning, you need to make these decisions for one product only in each area. As soon as you have more than one product, you will make the decisions for both products separately. It is important to keep in mind that the success of your marketing mix will be determined by the markets. Customers are comparing between different alternatives and making their purchase decisions accordingly.
Implementing different product features cause feature costs. You can implement 1-5 features to your products and each feature carries additional costs. Features can only be implemented if your company has reached the respective technology competence level either by investing to own R&D or by buying licenses from outside. Feature costs can be calculated by multiplying the number of features by the cost per feature.
Marketing affects not only the demand for the product being advertised but also the company's image in the particular market area. Thus advertising has long-term effect.

6. Logistics
When you set the delivery prioriries you should attempt to maximize your total margin from the products. This can be achieved by prioritizing those markets where unit margins are the highest. In other words, if you run out of supply, you want to make sure that it happens in the market where your unit margin is the lowest.

7. Researh and Development
There are two ways of improving your company's technological capabilities: own R&D and technology license purchases. They are both substitutable and complementary ways of building competence, which means that you can first invest to your own R&D then decide to buy a license and then improve the technology further by your own R&D again. Remember that technology decisions affect the competence with one year lag.

8. Finance
Finance decisions are typically the last set of decisions that you are making. All financial market transactions are managed through the parent company. you decide about:

• divident payments
• increases and decreases in long-term loans
• share issues and buy-backs.
• internal loans.

Issues and buybacks are made according to the market valuation in the beginning of the round. However, the namber of shares issued (acquired) also affects the issue (buyback) price.

9. Budgets
Budgets--pages update continuously as you make decisions.
Since your goal in the simulation is to maximize the shareholder value, you should pay attention to the balance sheet as well. Smaller balance sheet you have utilized your assets more effectively and thus better managed the funds that your investors have given for you to manage.

Market Areas of Mobile Phone

USA
USa is the local market for the companies and at the same time their largest market. USA is generally known to be a leader in high-tech industries but in the mobile phone sector it follows behind the rest of the world. Mobile technologies and networks tend to be a couple of years behind Europe and Asia. Also additional features ar less appreciated than in Asia and Europe. Demand is expected to grow steadily about 5% p.a. at least for the next 2-3 years. There seems to be no reason why growth should stop even after that. According to some of the least conservative estimates, in a few years together with the introduction of new technologies, growth in demand may show peaks of up to 10% p.a.

Europe
the companies have been exporting products to Europe for a couple of years. Production facilities will not be established in Europe because of the high labor costs
the market growth is expected at about 10%.p.a and demand is expected to grow steadily for several years to come. There is no fear that the market will mature, as new technologies guarantee constant change and the customers' will to purchase new phones remains.

Asia
Asia has been an export market for the companies for a couple of years. It is predicted that the highest growth potential is in fact in Asia. Currently the market grows at 15%.p.a., but long-term growth prospects are hard to make.
In Asia, consumers went their mobile phones to be of the latest technology together with all the possible additional features.

Socioeconomic Dimensions

A complete definition of market potential must also include detailed information about the population's physical attributes as measured by the socioeconomic dimensions. They are such as:

1. Total Population
Total population, the most general indicator of potential market size, in the first characteristic of the population that analytsts examine. Population sizes vary immenensely, from more than a billion inhabitants in China and India to 2,756 for Svalbard and the uninhabitted Bassas da India. The fact that many developed nations have fewer than 10 million inhabitants makes it apparent that population sizealone is a poor indicator of economic strength and market potential. Only for a few low priced products, such as soft drinks, cigarettes, and soap, might population size alone provide a basis for estimating consumption.

2. Age Distribution
Because few products are purchased by everyone, marketers must identify the segments of the population that are more apt to buy their goods. For some firms, age is a salient determinant of market size, but the distribution of age groups within populations varies widely. Generally, because of higher birth rates, developing countries have more youthful populations than do industrial countries.

3. Concern in Developed Nations.
the decrease in famili size is welcomed by some countries in Africa and the Middle East, where vertility rates are as high as seven shildren per woman. But declining birthrates are causing concern in industrialized nations.

4. Population destiny and Distribution
population destiny is a measure of the number of inhabitants per area unit (inhabitants per square mile), While the population distribution means a measure of how the inhabitants are distributed over a nation's area.

Seven Global Dimensions

There are at least seven dimensions along which management can globalize (standardize):

1. Product
2. Markets
3. promotion
4. where value is added to the product
5. competitive streategy
6. use of none-home-country personnel, and
7. extent of global ownership in the firm.

The posibilities range from zero standardization (multidomestic) to standardization along all seven dimensions (completely global). The challenge for company managers is to determine how far the firm should go with each one. Usually the amount of globalization will vary among the dimensions. For example, the promotion for washing machines might be standardized to a great extent: People use them to get their clothes clean, but for economic reasons, in poorer countries the machines must be simpler and less costly. Therefore, the product is not standardized worldwide.

Competitor Analytic

In starting internet business, we will find many competitors. Even the competitors are not only came from the domestic environment, but its are coming from the whole world.  As the customers/internet users, they should compare one to another site. For example, when someone wants to buy a shoes, he or she would compare one product to another product. Of course the customers will choose the best one if compared based on the product's price. they will not directly buy a product while they see the product they want. as the producers, we can not force somone to buy our product. But inverse of it precisely the buyer will acquittedly to make a decision  to buy the product offered. There is as aphorism from Indonesia said that "The buyer is the king for the seller". It means that the buyer has a freedom in making decision to decide whether they buy the product or not.
So, what we will see here is before making a internet business, let we make an analysis, that is said competitor analytic. Competitor analytic means that the principal competitors are identified, and their objectives, strengths, weaknesses, and product lines are assessed. To make our product is unique for the customers is creating the strength of our product is different from the other same product. It would be unique because the customer will see that our product can be made as alternative to be choosen. then, we have to analyze the competitor's product weakenesses, and we should know and try to make our product better than competitors'  weak specificated of the product . We should know to create the objective of our product more special compared with the competitor's product. Tese things will help us to compete in business, and we can create our product has it's own strenght compared to the other products.

Arguments Supporting Globalization

Expanding trade by collectively reducing barriers is the most powerful tool that countries, working together, can deploy to reduce proverty and raise living standarts.
That three trade is the best strategy for advancing the world's economic development is one of the few propositions on which almost all economists agree, not only  because it is theoritically compelling, but also because it has been demonstrated in practice. On a wide range of measures--proverty,education, health, and life expectancy--more people have become better off at a faster pace in the past 60 years than at any time in history. Evidence is strong regarding the dramatic decline in both the proportion and absolute number of destitute people. The latest World Development Indicators from the World Bank show that the number of people in extreme proverty fell from 1.5 billion in 1981 to 1.1 billion in 2001. measured as proportion of the population in developing countries, the decline was from 39.5 percent in 1981 to 21.3 percent in 2001. Between 1981 and 1999, the proportion of people in the East Asia and Pacific region living on less than $1 a day fell from 56% to 165. In China, it plummeted from 61% to 17%. In south Asia it fell from 52% to 31%. South Korea and other Asian economies had made a full transition to modernity. Within a generation,s time, there has been an enormous improvement success stories was based on export led growth facilitated by the liberalization of trade.
Of course, countries can reject globalization and some have, including Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, rwanda, madagaskar, Guiea-Bissau, Algeria, the Republic of Congo, Burundi, Albania, Syria, and Ukraine. They are among the most impoverished countries in the world. As an article in The Financial Times putsit, "they are victims of their refusal to globalize.'
expanded trade is also linked with the creation of more and better jobs. Over the past two decades--a period of immense technological change and growth in trade--aroung 40 million more jobs were created than were destroyed in the united Sites. It is true that, when a country opens to trade,just as when new technologies are developed, some of its sectors may not be competitive. Companies may go out of business and some jobs will be lost. but trade creates new jobs and these tend to be better than the old ones. The key is not to block change, but instead to manage the costs of trade adjustment and to support the transition of workers to more competitive employment.

A Little Guy Makes Global Business Easies for the Little Guys

DE Technologies, a tiny private company with only six employees, has patented a technology for using the internet/intranet to process sales globally. Intended for small and medium-sized enterprises, development of the technology was stimulated by the frustrations that DE Technologies' founder encountered while attempting to arrange international trade deals in Russia for his own small company. Traditional systems for international trade, involving multiple, inefficient, and time-consuming layers of vertical service industries, can require 20 or more forms and 60 days to complete and cost 5 to 40 percent of the cost of the total transaction.
With this system, which is called the Electronic Commerce backbone System (ECBS), small and medium-sized firms can automatically export and import goods and services without previous international trade experience. The ECBS allows buyers/sellers to buy american products in the currency of the destination country, view product descriptions in the language of the destination country, view digital still or motion video displays of the products for sale, and view the calculations and displays of prices for air, land, and sea transportation; it also ensures direct payment of goods via credit cards or documentary credit.
Procedures such as the preparation and filling of export-import documents, freight, insurance, titles, letters of credit, pro forma invoices, and bills of landing are done by the program. This eliminates the necessity of engaging foreign freight forwarders, export and import agens, and other international channels of distribution members. thus, ECBS reduces the costs of ocean and air freight, banking, and human resources.
Small and medium-sized businesses can become members by paying a small membership fee, which gives them access to the ECBS. A transactional fee of 0.3 percent also is levied. according to the founder of DE Technologies, "the capability of the system will allow thousands of SMEs to compete effectively in the import/Export business with 'the Big Guys' as the barriers to entry will be lowered tremendously."
the ECBS can be supplemented with the Borderless order Entry System (Boes), a patented process to electronically manage international trade transactions in an integrated manner. It can allow companies to create and file necessary electronic documents (in any currency or language), monitor and track steps in the transaction, calculate applicable freight costs as well as taxes and duties, and perform financial arrangements of a sophisticated nature. the result is a reduction of a much as 30 percent in the costs of conducting international trade transactions. SMEs can export and import products from any nation, using the internet and intranets, and thereby expand market share in international markets.

Internet Users

Nowadays in the modern era, that everything should be integradted with technology. As wwe know, world is being globaled because of technology. The more the technology is improving, the more people have to addapt to new situation.

We will describe about internet users that it will useful for you to know the globalize information. Now the internet users are around 1 billion users. That amount is a very huge amount for the most used of information and communication medium. With 1 billion people of internet users, it can be made as potential customers for many companies, like we are knowing that internet medium used by them as one of their marketing's tools. So, how the companies that use internet to promote their products or services, just like that the result for them to get the result.

As Internet businessman, they should know the strategy how to connect to the users in around the world, because with the only one medium that is internet, we can reach many people in the world easily as virtual world. It is why we have been hearing the term of global village. Global village means that all areas in the world can be reached by internet or globalized virtually, besides it, internet users easier to get information, cheaper and faster compared with the other medium such as televition, radio, newspaper and so on. But what is the weakness of the internet to satisfied the internet users? The answer is because the informations provided are overload, so many internet users now dissapointed with the information overloaded.

Therefore, we would know what is the important things to do to make the internet users realy satisfied with our information. Below are the list of it:
1. Make your information clearly.
2. Make your information trustable.
3. Provide many free newest, innovative, and creative services to the internet users, so they would remember our site.

Those things are very useful to persuade internet users to be your potential customers as Internet Businessman. but we have to be patient to get many visitors in our websites. I thing this simple tips useful for us to be Internet information providers. So you have to search the real information about what is the most popular used in internet by internet users to be effectively in your marketing plan.

Start Your Business Today, No Money? No Problem.

A lot of us have aspirations to own our own business - become our own boss. Every year many small businesses get started by people just like you and me; persons who have an idea for a product or service and follow through on it.

You may have an idea for a business but think because you don’t have the money that your dream of starting your own business will never be a reality.

However, there are a number of things you can do right now to help you get started on the path toward building your dream business. There are many steps you can take to develop startup ideas and flesh them out. And those initial steps do not take any money at all — just time and effort on your part.

1. Start a journal.

You maybe have two valuable tools sitting on your desk right now: paper and pencils. Many of the greatest business people and inventors of our time kept notebooks full of ideas, thoughts and sketches. If you are still investigating what type of business you might be interested in keeping a journal is a great way to come up with great ideas. You might be shopping at the local grocery store and have that “Aha!” moment for a product or service that would take the marketplace by storm.

2. Every good business needs a business plan.

Actually, when you are looking for financing from the Small Business Administration, or even local financing, many lenders want to see a business plan first. There is a wealth of information available online and at your local library to help you put together your business plan.

In fact, putting together a business plan is one of the first things you should do before investing a dollar of your money into a business. It involves a lot of research and number crunching but is well worth it. It not only allows potential lenders to see how you plan to run the business, but it may also give you a reality check. When you see the numbers and figures on paper it lets you see firsthand if your business has a good chance of surviving, because the reality is that sometimes we have great ideas but the marketplace just isn’t ready for them yet. A good example of this is the personal computer — the idea had been around for well over a decade before IBM and Apple found a suitable marketplace for it.

3. Do you know your competition?

This is another area you can focus on right now without money. Learn about your potential competitors, what they offer and how they differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Learn from them to not only make your business better but to also find out if there is additional room in the marketplace for your business.

While you may have a great idea for the next gadget you may very well find out that the marketplace is already saturated with similar products from other competitors. You could potentially save yourself a large amount of money avoiding a failed venture by knowing your marketplace.

4. Cut through red tape and delays.

Does your business idea involve a physical product? If so, are you up to speed on all the regulations and requirements to bring that product to market? Use this time to find out about not only federal but local regulations that might affect your product roll out. Food products, for instance, are heavily regulated by various agencies because of their potential to harm others if not properly manufactured, distributed and sold.

You can find out a lot of this information from the Small Business Administration and your state government. Ask your local librarian as well, as they may be able to point you to local rules and regulations that will also affect your product.

5. Build the infrastructure.

If you are new to the world of running your own business you can also use this time to find out more about how to keep bookkeeping records, comply with federal and state tax codes and get the proper licenses. You might find that local Chamber of Commerce groups have free, introductory classes on running a business you could take to learn about the behind the scenes work required to run your own business.

Even though funds might be tight, or even non-existent, there are a number of things you can do now to get your business off on the right track. Use this time wisely to investigate the proper way to run a business as well as to investigate how the marketplace for your particular business is currently looking, not only today but in the near future. By putting a little research into your business now, before you take the plunge, you may come out miles ahead when you finally open up shop!

Seven Types of Web Hosting

Overview of the major levels of Web hosting

Just like your online business grows, your web hosting needs will increase and become more complex. $10 per month hosting may have been fine in your first 6 months, but if your website is starting to feel languid, you may need to start looking at beefing up your web server.
Think of this list as the progression of the type of hosting a growing online business can consider.

1. Shared Hosting

It means that your website is hosted on a server shared by other websites. The advantage of this setup is the shared cost. You can pay as little as $5-$10 per month for sharing a super server with (probably) hundreds of other websites.
The biggest disadvantage of a shared hosting account is that you're at the mercy of the other sites on your server. A really popular site may adversely affect the performance of your own site. On the other hand, if you're the most popular site on the server, you get to use a super server for a very low price.

2. Reseller Hosting


Reseller hosting packages is basically a shared hosting account with extra tools to help you resell hosting space. Reseller packages come with greater technical control (often via the Web Host Manager (WHM) control panel), billing software to help you invoice clients, and other extra perks.
Some of those perks include:
free website templates.
white label technical support -- that means the hosting company handles your clients' tech support issues
private name servers -- make your company seem even bigger by telling your clients to point their domain nameservers to ns1.yourwebdesignfirm.com

Price range: Reseller packages range from $15 - $50, depending on features and resource limits.

3. Grid / Cloud Hosting


Grid or Cloud Hosting refers to a fairly new hosting technology that lets hundreds of individual servers work together so that it looks like one giant server. The idea is that as the need grows, the hosting company can just add more commodity hardware to make an ever larger grid or cloud.
Price Range: All grid computing packages use some form of pay-for-what-you-use pricing structure.
Base prices start at $20 for Media Temple and $100 for Mosso (a Rackspace company). Both charge more for extra bandwidth, CPU processing, memory usage, or other resource usage. Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) has no minimum monthly fee (you pay for only what you use), but requires more tech savvy to get started (price calculator).

4. Virtual Private Server (VPS)


Virtual private servers share one physical server but acts like multiple, separate servers. A VPS is a stepping stone between shared hosting and getting your own dedicated machine. Even though each VPS instance shares hardware resources, they are allocated a dedicated slice of the computing resources.
A VPS avoids the problem of having your hosting neighbors bring down your website, while avoiding the cost of a dedicated server.
Price Range: Most VPS hosting packages cost between $50 and $200. Pricing is based on the guaranteed CPU and memory (RAM) you get. Here is a list of reliable VPS hosting providers.

5. Dedicated Server


When you have a dedicated server, it means you are renting one physical server from a hosting company. You can have full control (called "root" permissions in Linux) if you want it.
Pricing: Dedicated servers are priced from $100 and up. But if you are considering a dedicated server, you should also consider the costs of hiring a sysadmin to take care of the box.

6. Colocation


When you colocate, you rent rack space from a data center. You bring in your own server hardware and they provide power, cooling, physical security, and an internet uplink. This means you're responsible for your own server software, data storage, backup procedures, etc. If hardware fails, you're responsible for replacing it and getting the server back up and running.
Unless you have the technical know-how in-house, colocation is probably not worth the investment in time, expertise, and money for most small businesses.

7. Self Service


The ultimate hosting plan -- you do it all yourself! You buy the servers, install and configure the software, make sure there is sufficient cooling and power in your machine room, and double up everything for redundancy. Some of the things you'll have to take care of:


  - data center space
  - cooling.
  - power (with backup)
  - bandwidth
  - server hardware
  - systems administrator
  - data integrity and backup
  - ....and the list goes on.

The way to Find the Best Possible Web Hosting

1. Assess Your Needs


Not every Web host will be right for every online business. Know what your basic needs are so you can eliminate the worst matches. For this first step, you are reducing your options from thousands to hundreds.
Sample hosting needs based on the type of online business:
Ecommerce -- If your website requires a shopping cart and inventory management, you may want to narrow your search to only hosts that provide a one-click installation of osCommerce or other ecommerce software.
Large Photos and Videos -- If you are publishing a media rich website with lots of images and/or video, then high storage and monthly transfer limits are your priority.
Online Brochure -- Simple 5-10 page websites don't require a lot of resources, so all Web hosts should be able to handle it. But if you are building your first website, then a host that has a lot of easy to understand documentation and a customer forum where you can ask questions may provide added value for you.

Be wary of hosts that promise unlimited anything for a very low price. The practice of putting customers on a server that can't cover all of the allowed limits is called "overselling". Because most customers use only a fraction of the resources offered, and many don't realize they're on an oversold server, overselling is a common practice for boosting profits in the low-cost shared hosting market.
Learn more:
Different Types of Web Hosting

2. Get Recommendations from Trusted Sources

One source of trustworthy advice is WebHostingTalk.com. WHT is the oldest and largest forum dedicated to Web hosting. If you post your needs and ask for help from the community, members can steer you in the right direction.
You can also contact the websites that are similar to your site. Webmasters understand the frustration of Web host shopping, and most will gladly share their experiences and recommendations.
Beware of websites that have top 10 rankings of Web hosting providers. Most of the listings on a Google search for "Web hosting" are looking to earn referral commissions and are not trustworthy.
Some Web hosting providers:
  -Shared Web Hosting for $10 or Less.
  -Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

3. Look for Heroic Customer Service

Take note of bad reviews, but don't base your decision on them. Every Web host will pick up a few bad reviews. Because the hosting industry is so competitive, providers must specialize in order to survive. As a result, many negative customer experiences are a result of mismatched expectations rather than incompetence or malice from the hosting provider.
Give more weight to testimonials of heroic measures by the provider. You are looking for the handful of providers that go above and beyond their obligations to make sure the customer is satisfied. Truly exceptional customer service -- not price or features -- is what differentiates the best Web hosting companies from the rest of the pack.
4. Monitor and Test

Just because you've chosen a Web host doesn't mean you have found a lifelong partner. You may outgrow your first choice, find that you have new needs, or your provider may not live up to their promises. There is no need to settle for a less than ideal hosting provider when there are so many choices available.
To make sure your host is providing a high quality service, use a monitoring company like Pingdom or Alertra. Both use a global network of test servers to monitor the speed and availability of your website, and will alert you by email or SMS text message if your site goes down.
Learn more:
Website Monitoring Services

5. Don't Be Afraid to Move

It may take a few moves before you find your ideal hosting provider. Customer reviews and top lists only go so far, and until you have first hand experience with a Web host, you're always on the outside looking in. Test drive your host for a few months before signing up for a long term contract.

If you decide to move your website, the new hosting provider should be happy to do it for you. Just drop an email to support with the login credentials to your old Web host. If they're not happy about it, it's a warning sign of the bad customer service that is in your future.

Even though many hosts offer free domain name registration, it's a good idea to use a dedicated registrar like GoDaddy to manage your domain names. It is a lot easier to move Web hosts if they don't handle your domain name registration as well.

One final note -- Relax! Most Web hosts can competently provide basic services. And since it's pretty easy to move a website, it won't kill your business if you get it wrong the first time around. As long as you do a little research, and are prepared to jump ship if necessary, you will eventually find the Web hosting provider of your dreams.

Eleven Tips for DIY Search Engine Optimization: Link Building and Design

Build links and use search friendly Web design to rank higher and save money

SEO is a requirement for growing your business online like a Yellow Pages listing was in the 20th century. If you’re not prominently listed in search engine results, your business may as well not exist to millions of potential customers.
Despite lots of hype by SEO consultants, the basics of SEO are actually pretty straightforward. In fact, I recommend against hiring SEO consultants until you have tried this article’s DIY strategies for improving search engine ranking yourself. This will save you money and make you a smarter web marketer.
Here are my Top Eleven Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization Tips.
A. Link Exchange Tips

1. Relevant Link Backs
The most important factor in determining search engine rankings today is the number and quality of other sites that link to your site. Search engines count these links to determine how authoritative your website is, and use the count to assign a ranking relative to other sites in your target market.
To boost your site’s rankings, you need sites that are relevant to your topic area to link back to you. Their relevance to your topic is important because the choice by a related site to link to yours validates your site’s credibility for your target topics.
2. Highly Ranked Link Backs
Because the sites that link to you help determine your site’s ranking, it’s best if you get sites that are not only relevant but also already highly ranked to link. Some of their high ranking with the search engines basically "rubs off" on your website if they link to you
3. Anchor Text Link Backs
While almost any relevant or authoritative links back to your website are helpful, it will improve your site’s search engine ranking more if the text of those links contains keywords that are important to your site’s products or subject matter.
So, for example, don’t just ask for links using your domain name or "click here" as the "anchor text". Instead you should ask your link exchange partners to link to your site using text like "best deals on plasma TVs", or "Indianapolis chiropractor".
Such keyword-loaded anchor text links are helpful because the search engines essentially give you "double points" by counting both the link itself and that link’s reinforcement of your website’s importance for the keyword topics it contains.



B. SEO Design Tips

4. No Flash Movies
Don’t hide your web pages behind animated movies that play using Flash software. They may be pretty but search engines prefer plain text today and cannot read Flash. So don’t do it because it may prevent search engines from indexing your site at all.
5. Menus in Text

Similarly, don’t hide your navigational menu links in images. Search engines cannot read graphics as well as they can read text. Your navigational menu is critical for search engine spiders to read both because the menu’s entries demonstrate the hierarchy of your website, and because the keywords contained in menu links tell the search engine what you think is important on each page.
6. Keywords in Image "ALT" and "Title" Tags

As stated previously, search engine crawlers cannot read graphics. You can increase the SEO impact of images on your pages by ensuring that you title and tag them appropriately.
This means renaming JPEG’s and other non-text files with new names that include keywords. So, a photo of a cat should be renamed from "c4289b.jpg" to "cat.jpg" if you want any search engine ranking benefit related to "cat" keywords.
The ALT tags and TITLE tags associated with each image are also great places to insert keywords that can be even more specific than the file name example.

C. SEO Keyword Tips


7. Understanding Keywords

To rank highly in the search engine results you need to pick appropriate key words and phrases with which to promote your site. You don’t want the keywords to be so broad (e.g. "cars", "shirts", "consulting") that your site is lost in a sea of competitors on page 28 of Google’s results. You also don’t want to target keywords that are so narrow that few people are likely to search on them.

You can use free online research tools like Google’s Keyword Tool to help you brainstorm appropriate keywords, and Google’s Traffic Estimator Sandbox to find those keywords where there is customer demand to support your website’s business.
The key to uncovering your best keywords is to think like your customer. This means avoiding industry buzzwords or lingo to use simple, "natural language" instead. So try targeting "warm socks" instead of "men’s support hosiery", for example.
8. Meta Tags
While not as important to search engine ranking calculations as they used to be, the "meta tags" hidden in each web page’s HTML code should be tweaked to maximize their potential impact. This means including your keywords so that they appear in the "title", "description", and "keywords" meta tag fields. This is easily done in most web page publishing tools or content management systems (or ask your tech guys to do it). Many search engines reference these fields to identify what keywords you see as most representative of your page’s content.
9. Headline Placements
The visible elements of your web pages’ headlines, links, and text should all be reviewed for keyword inclusion also. The search engines give extra weight to any words that are included in the titles of each page and section, and wherever text is bolded, highlighted, or linked. Their logic here is that if you are emphasizing those words visually to site visitors, then those words are probably key to your site’s content, too.

10. Keywords in Your URL
You want to use your keywords in as many other appropriate places as possible, too. For example if you can use them in your website’s URL that can help your ranking. (Of course, you must balance this against making your URL longer, harder to remember, and perhaps more difficult to spell, too.)
11. Page File Names
Further reinforcement of your keywords by using them in your page titles and file names is also a good idea. This can result in URLs for your popular pages that look like this:

Caution: Avoid Keyword Stuffing

NOTE: You must balance all of this keyword advice against the rules that many search engines have about "keyword stuffing". This means that you shouldn’t go crazy with the keyword insertion -- search engines are wary of sites that overdo it. They prefer your text copy to appear like normal conversational or sales copy.


This suggests a keyword "density" of less than 15%. In other words, for every 100 words of copy on the page, you don’t want to have more than 15 of them as your keywords. Many experts advise even lower, down as low as 3-5%.
Bonus SEO Tip: How to Index Your New Web Site Fast!

For new websites, it is often frustrating how long it can take before the major search engines find, index and add their sites to results pages. (Many search engines even make money on this by offering "rapid submission" services with recurring fees often in the hundreds of dollars.)
One simple tactic that can accelerate a new site’s appearance in search engine results is to have it linked to from an already established, highly ranked site. Big sites are crawled regularly by Google, Yahoo, etc.
(Entrepreneurial small businesses interested in a link exchange with an established site can visit the E-Business Links Directory on ScottFox.com. This free service offers link exchanges that can help improve both search engine submission speed and results ranking. I have had new sites of my own appear in Google’s search results in just days using this technique.)
Overall, the basics of SEO are well within your technical reach. I recommend implementing each of the DIY techniques detailed above before spending money on SEO consultants. There are many more advanced strategies that good SEO consultants can help with to improve your web site rankings.

From The Good Man (Brick) and Mortar to Ecommerce

Below is list of tasks that a local brick & mortar retailer will usefull to do to start selling products on the web. This guide purposes to help you in selling goods online and ship orders worldwide.
The tasks are labeled with 4 priority levels. The required tasks are the things every online retailer needs to do. The recommended and optional tasks will make your ecommerce life easier, but they're not absolutely necessary for selling online. The advanced tasks aim to create an efficient system for high volume sellers.
Have a question, comment or suggestion about this guide? Email me at onlinebusiness.guide@about.com.

1. Get Broadband Internet Access (required)
Dial-up access won't do when you're doing business online. You'll need to be online to create product listings, upload pictures, process new sales, email customers, and almost everything else. A fast, always-on Internet connection is a must-have for any business working online.
Get the lowest priced DSL plan from your phone company. (Probably in the $50 range, with some kind of discount for the first few months.) You don't need a bigger plan unless the connection feels slow and you upload or share big media files (pictures, videos).

2. Register a Domain Name
Your domain name is the web address of your website and the part after the @ sign in your email address. For example, the domain name of the New York Times is nytimes.com.
You don't absolutely need a domain name to sell goods online. However, having an email address like greg@yourcompany.com is a lot more professional and trustworthy than a free email address like gregscompany@yahoo.com.
Since they're cheap (less than $10 per year) and easy to register, I suggest registering a domain name even if you don't plan on building your own website.
All of the following domain name registrars offer a quality service at reasonable prices: GoDaddy, Register.com, Enom, EasyDNS, Yahoo! Domains.
More tips on choosing a domain name for your business.

3. Buy a Shipping Scale
An accurate scale is important from the get go because the weight of the product determines how much it will cost to ship.
Buyers are looking at the total cost (price + shipping) of buying your product, and if your listed shipping weight of the product is too high, you'll price your products out of the market. On the other hand, charge too little for shipping, and you'll have to pay the difference out of your own pocket.
What you're looking for in a scale:
- Remote or extended readout display.
- Adequate weight range for your products.
- Attachments for rolls and/or envelopes.
- Big enough surface area for your products.
- Tare / zero out function.
- Digital readout for precision.
The Ultraship line of scales has served me well.

4. Buy a Digital Camera
You don't need a fancy expensive digital camera or a full studio setup. All you need is a basic digital camera ($100-200) with the following minimum features:
At least 1 megapixel - Yup, that's all. That should not be a problem with any digital camera these days.
Macro capabilities - So you can have ultra-close zoom for detailed pictures.
Flash disabling - The picture always comes out worse using the built-in flash. Indirect sunlight makes for great lighting. If you want to buy indoor lights, check out this product photography guide first.

5. Buy a Decent Computer
You obviously need a computer to do work online. Use these guidelines to get a desktop for under $500 or a laptop for under $1000.
Monitor - Go bigger, it's worth it. Look for 19" - 22" LCD monitors for the best deals.
Memory (RAM) - Splurge! Get at least 1 Gb of RAM. 2 Gb is better and would not be a waste of money. RAM makes everything feel snappier.
Processor (CPU) - Tend to go cheaper. Spend the money on RAM or a bigger monitor.
Storage (hard drive size) - Get at least 100 Gb for a desktop, and at least 60 Gb for a laptop. Raw product pictures take up a lot of space.
DVD-RW Drive - Make sure you can burn DVDs to make data backups.
Operating System - Any will do. XP, Vista, Linux, OSX... they all work.

6. Buy a Laser Printer
You will need to print on two types of paper:
Regular 8.5" x 11" paper for packing slips, reports, general purpose printing.
Self-adhesive labels for pre-paid postage and address labels. Shop for Laser Printers.
Compared to an inkjet printer, laser printers are faster, quieter, prints noticeably sharper output, and the ink doesn't smear when it gets wet. It's worth the upgrade.
Printing your own postage from the office is a huge time saver. It might be worth it to get a dedicated label printer. (I like the Zebra LP2844 - fast enough and prints 4"x6".)
If you're not buying a dedicated label printer, get a laser printer that has two trays so you don't have to constantly swap out the regular paper for self-adhesive labels.

7. Setup Your Email at Google Apps
This step is high up on the list, even before we list a single product for sale, because email is required for creating accounts with vendors. It's also the primary method of communication on the Web.
You could use a free email address from Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail instead of bothering with a domain (see #1 above) and setting up your own mailbox. But using an email address at your own domain is what separates the pros from the amateurs.
I recommend creating a Google Apps account. It lets you manage your company's email addresses from a central location. You can also add other free services like instant messaging, document and spreadsheet editing/sharing, and group calendars. (Two alternatives to Google are Zoho and Microsoft Office Live.

8. Create a PayPal Account for Payment Processing
PayPal is a very popular way to pay online. Think of it as an online wallet. On eBay, it's the preferred way to pay for both sellers and buyers.
With a PayPal account, you can accept payments via PayPal or a major credit card (Visa, MC, AMEX, Discover).
PayPal also offers a free application called MultiOrder Shipping that lets sellers pay for and print postage labels in bulk. (Unfortunately, it only supports USPS and domestic U.S. shipments at the moment.)

9. Get Free Shipping Supplies From USPS and UPS
The US Postal Service (USPS) and UPS are the two biggest carriers for shipping orders. Both integrate seamlessly with third party selling software (including eBay). That lets your customers calculate custom shipping quotes based on their location.
Both also offer free shipping supplies for their customers. You just need to create an account at usps.com and/or ups.com, and you can start requesting free shipping envelopes, boxes, customs forms, labels, and more.
The UPS advantage over the USPS is tracking. UPS provides accurate global, door-to-door tracking on all their packages. But they cost more than the USPS. Ship globally or high value items? Check out UPS.

10. Sell a Few Things on eBay via Auction
eBay is by far the largest online marketplace where sellers and buyers gather, and it's a great place to start your ecommerce business. Start by listing a few small, inexpensive, easy-to-ship items at auction. By selling products one at a time (via auction or fixed price listing) lets you slowly learn about the ecommerce sales (creating effective listings), and gives you time to buildout your fulfillment pipeline (packaging, shipping, returns).
Even if you ultimately decide to build your own ecommerce website, you should still sell on eBay. Its 78 million unique visitors a month (May '08) can't be ignored.
Also try to buy a few things. It's helpful to see the ecommerce process from the buyer's point of view. This is a list of tasks that a local brick & mortar retailer will need to do to start selling products on the Web. This guide aims to help you sell goods online and ship orders worldwide.
The tasks are labeled with 4 priority levels. The required tasks are the things every online retailer needs to do. The recommended and optional tasks will make your ecommerce life easier, but they're not absolutely necessary for selling online. The advanced tasks aim to create an efficient system for high volume sellers.

11. Create an eBay Store
Once you've sold a few items via auction or fixed price (buy-it-now) listings, you may want to create (or "subscribe" in eBay lingo) an eBay store. Starting at $16, an eBay store subscription lets you create listings that last for 30 days (instead of the 10 day max for auctions / fixed price) for a very low insertion fee (around 2-3 cents).
Sellers of all sizes can benefit from having an eBay store. It's like a hub for your listings -- your virtual store.
But make sure you keep creating auctions and fixed price listings. They show up much more prominently than store inventory on searches.
For experienced sellers who want to list their inventory for fixed prices, there is eBay Express.

12. Check Your Business' Local Search Listing
Nowadays, when people are looking for a local business, they turn to one of the following online local business directories instead of a paper phone book.
Make sure your business information is accurate, and fill out as much additional information as you can (eg., your business hours, online store's Web address, pictures, etc). Also consider spending some of your advertising dollars at these local directories. All of them offer sponsored listings that put your business' name in front of relevant searches.

This step drives more foot traffic to your brick & mortar store, so you should do this even if you never build a website.

13. Get Web Hosting
Web hosting is useful even if you don't have your own website. You can self-host images for use on eBay listings, which lets you save some fees and improve your listings with more pictures. (It currently costs $0.15 for a second picture.)

14. Hire a Web Designer
Even if you start out selling on eBay, you many eventually find yourself in need of a Web designer. Here are some actions to help you hire a Web designer:
-Step-by-Step Guide to Hiring the Best Web Designer for Your Project
-5 Tips for Choosing a Web Designer
-6 Essential Contract Terms for a Web Design Project
-Top 10 Job Boards for Web Designers

15. Build an Ecommerce Store at Your Own Domain
As your ecommerce operations outgrow eBay, you may want to start looking into running your own store at your own domain. Benefits include a lower transaction fee for each sale. Drawbacks include having to deal with the technical issues yourself (or hire a dedicated tech person).
Yahoo! Small Business Ecommerce is a good intermediate step between eBay and hosting your own software. For a higher fixed monthly fee ($40), they take a smaller transaction fee (1%).
For the largest volume sellers, you may not want to pay even 1% in transaction fees. In that case, you could install your own ecommerce software. Here are some self-hosted ecommerce applications:
-osCommerce (Also see its offshoots ZenCart, CRE Loaded, and OSC Max.)
-Magento
-X-Cart

Ten Factors of Search Engine Ranking

Important factors that help improve search engine rankings
Search engine ranking factors are some of the most closely guarded secrets in online business. Every Search Engine do not publish exactly how they rank webpages in search results, because that would lead to massive gaming of the system and produce non-useful results.
Fortunately, you don't have to figure out how Google determines search engine rankings all by yourself. There's an entire industry of professionals who have a good handle on how search engine placement works based on their cumulative experiences. Better still, their collective wisdom has been collected and published by SEOmoz, a SEO consultancy and website.
Below are ten factors that positively affect your search engine rankings:
1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Anchor text of inbound links
3. Site's global link popularity.
4. Site's age.
5. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

Here's each of the ten search engine ranking factors, with easy-to-understand explanations and actionable tasks you can apply today.

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag

In Laymen's Terms: Include the search keywords you are targeting in your webpage's title tag.
If you have time to do only one SEO action on your site, take the time to create good titles.- Christine Churchill
The title tag (or "meta title") is the text that appears at the top of your browser window. Think of it as the title for the webpage. The meta title is also what is displayed as a link in search results.
In the HTML code, the meta title is the text between the
Your Action: Use the search keywords you're targeting in every webpage's title tag. Have a customized title for each page; don't be lazy and use the same title for every page on your site.
If you have a brochureware website designed by a Web designer, when you give the designer your text copy for each page, you should also provide a custom title for each page.
For WordPress users, you can install the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin. It lets you modify the title tag of each blog posts.

2. Anchor Text of Inbound Links

In Laymen's Terms: When other sites link to your webpages, how do they describe the link?
Anchor text of the inbound link is one of the most concise assessments another person can make about what your site/page is 'about'.- Mike McDonald
The anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link. (In the last sentence, the words "anchor text" is the anchor text of the link.)
Looking at how other websites link to you (ie., what they use for the anchor text) tells Google how people are describing your content.
Your Action: When you email other websites to promote your content, mention your preferred anchor text if they choose to link to your site. You won't always get what you ask for, but it never hurts to ask. And there's a big payoff if you can get other sites to use the search keywords you're targeting when they link to you.
Choose anchor text that helps your website/page rank better for your targeted keywords. For example, if I were to ask for a link to this article, I would ask for anchor text that says something like "Top 10 Search Engine Ranking Factors". That anchor text tells search engines that the link goes to a page about "search engine ranking" -- the search keywords that I would love to have this article rank prominently.
That anchor text is better than "the most awesome article ever written". While it would be interesting to see which anchor text generates more clicks from human surfers, there is no doubt that the keyword-rich version of the anchor text would help this article's ranking in search results much more than the keyword-less version.

3. Site's global link popularity.

In Laymen's Terms: How many other websites are linking to your site?
I am a strong believer that a sites overall link popularity drastically effect rankings.- Neil Patel
In general, the more inbound links to your website, the better it is for you. Every inbound link is a "vote" for your site. If lots of other websites link to you, search engines conclude that lots of people find your content useful or interesting. That makes your webpage rank higher than a similar page with fewer inbound links.
But remember that quantity is not the whole game. As we continue to look at the top 10 search ranking factors, note that the quality and relevance of those inbound links matter greatly.
Your Action: Make link building -- the practice of getting more inbound links to your site -- a central part of your online marketing strategy.

4. Site's age.

In Laymen's Terms: The older your website, the better.
I believe it's always had some importance and within the past two years, aging has taken on more signifigance in the ranking factors.- Scottie Claiborne
Older sites have more weight than newer sites. The age of a website is hard to fake. Plus, search engines figure that if your site has been around for so long, it's probably better than a brand new site.
Your Action: Start today. Be patient. The hard work you put in now to optimize your website may not payoff until next year. The good news is that after next year, you'll have a leg up on new competition.

5. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure

In Laymen's Terms: How prominent is the webpage within your own site?
Without the proper linking structure, certain pages may not get enough emphasis. For example, ... links directly from the homepage usually do really well.- Neil Patel
The more prominently you feature a particular page on your site, the more weight search engines will give it.Your Action: Showcase your best content or the webpage you most want to highlight. Put it in your main navigation menu or link to it from your homepage.

6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site

In Laymen's Terms: Are the sites linking to you related to your topic (and targeted keywords)? The more relevant, the more weight those links are given.
I think, in a perfect algorythm, relevance matters. Whether Google has figured out how to pull it off yet or not, I don't know but I do believe that is the ultimate goal. Whether they get more "weight" or not, relevant links are good business and help with rankings as well. - Scottie Claiborne
All of your neighbours have a wide variety of thematic inbound link text from a wide variety of topical sites. You have the same anchor text from your unrelated porn/pills/casino link farm. Chances are a search engine can instantly spot you as a 'deviant' from the norm and flag you as having an unnatural inbound linking pattern. - Lucas Ng (aka shor)This factor is similar to #2 (anchor text of inbound links). How other sites link to you matter. For example, if you have a site about chess
Your Action: Relevance matters. Focus your link building efforts on sites within your topical niche.

7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community


In Laymen's Terms: How popular is the site that is linking to you? Especially withing your niche.
A niche site may not have a high quantity of links but a few links from the 'authorities' in the neighbourhood is often enough to rank the site above the authorities for niche-related keywords. The authoritative sites are telling the search engines "Hey, we're voting for this site for these niche (anchor text) keywords". - Lucas Ng (aka shor)
Your Action: Relevance and authority matter. For #6, we said you should focus your link building efforts on sites within your topical niche. This factor says you should prioritize your link building on getting links from the biggest of the relevant sites.

8. Keyword Use in Body Text

In Laymen's Terms: Within the webpage/article, how often and what keywords being used? How relevant is your article to target keywords?
It is important to use the keyword phrase throughout the page where it makes sense. As engines get more sophisticated, it's not just the targeted keyword phrase that counts, but the mix of all the words on the page that help to determine what the page is about. - Scottie Claiborne
Your Action: Use the search keywords and phrases you're targeting throughout your page or article.... when it makes sense. Don't cram so many keywords in the article that Google penalizes you for keyword stuffing.

9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site

In Laymen's Terms: Links from big websites (ie., sites that have lots of inbound links) are worth more than links from smaller sites.
I like links that are linked to by many sites. I think there's a big difference between a PR 6 site with 20,000 links and a PR 6 with 500 inbounds.- Roger Montti aka martinibuster
Your Action: Focus your marketing efforts on the biggest, most authoritative sites. Think of it this way -- it's better to get one link from a big site (like About.com) than to get 10 links from 10 small sites (like personal blogs).

10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

In Laymen's Terms: Relevance matters. Links from a webpage that is related to your page's content are worth more than links from random, unrelated sites.
All links help - on topic helps a lot more overall. - Todd Malicoat
Your Action: Relevance matters (again). Focus your link building efforts on sites within your niche. And if you can help it somehow, try to get links on specific webpages within a site that's even more relevant.

Analyze the Full Survey
Google Search Engine Ranking Factors Survey - SEOMoz
The results of the full survey are very interesting. We've only scratched the surface with our discussion of the top 10 most influential search ranking factors. This survey represents the most authoritative and comprehensive collection of knowledge about Google's search algorithm. (Outside the company, of course.)

Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz:
This document represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). The result is a resource of incredible value - although not every one of the estimated 200+ ranking elements are included, it is my opinion that 90-95% of the knowledge required about Google's algorithm is contained below.