Are You Ignoring 80% Of Your Market?
Why You Should Be Reaching Out Across The Globe!

Did you know that by mid-year of 2008, the worldwide number of Internet users had grown to more than 1.46 BILLION people, with the total amount spent online estimated to grow to $263 billion by 2010 from $170 billion last year!?

With those figures in mind, consider that although the U.S. led the pack as of July '08 for the percentage of its population online (73.6%), that number still constitutes only 17% (and shrinking) of Web surfers worldwide—a fairly small segment of online users!

The true current and future online growth is and will be in the world's most populous countries, such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia. In fact, the Asian continent ranks first worldwide for the number of Internet users—578 MILLION and growing. Moreover, since 2000, Africa and the Middle East have witnessed what can only be described as a phenomenal increase of online users: a cumulative, eight-year 1,031.2 % and 1,176.8 % growth rate, respectively!

Make no mistake about it: China, India, and these other rising economic powerhouses around the globe represent a HUGE POTENTIAL for every home-business owner. MASSIVE developments in technology, improvements in standards of living, and increasing disposable income are opening the floodgates to a vast array of virtually untapped business possibilities.

That said, it's important to realize that this trend represents MUCH MORE than an interesting sideline marketing strategy for your business. Ignore this burgeoning source of increasing profits, networks, team members, prospects, and resources, and you do so at your own peril. If the U.S. is still your sole online market and source for customers, prospects, and team members, you're GREATLY limiting your reach...AND your profits. After all, what business owner would willingly turn away 80% of the possible customers coming into his store? Answer: The kind of owner who won't be in business much longer!

Fortunately, the worldwide growth and reach of the Internet has leveled the international playing field for the small-business owner. Home-based entrepreneurs no longer have to leave international markets to the "bigger" companies and enterprises with deep pockets.

Additionally, you can find a plethora of budget-friendly resources online to help you reach across the globe to prospects, customers, and team members in other countries. Pay-per-click pricing for the popular Google Adwords service and other PPC search engines has risen dramatically for U.S.-targeted advertising. However, many offer country-specific search engines and PPC ad opportunities—often for a fraction of the cost!

Take a few moments now and check out these Websites. They'll make a great starting point for planning your international business focus:

• Google International
  
  
  • Adwords: Regional and Local Targeting —Target your PPC ads to appear only in specific country, region, or city searches. This allows your ads to appear only for people searching for results in regional areas you choose.
    
    
  • Looking for good online advertising sources in a specific country? Try this Google search page. Simply enter the country in which you want to limit your search results, enter your keyword (i.e., online ads, classifieds, etc.), and click the Google Search button.
    
    
  • To find a Google search engine for a specific country, click HERE, then scroll down to the bottom of the page.
    
    
• Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture): International— A nice overview for using Yahoo!'s PPC offering to reach the world.
  
  
• International Search Engine Directory—A list of search engines per country. A great place to start for finding country-specific ad sources.
  
  
• Search Engine Watch: Pay-Per-Click Search Engines—Get information on major PPC search engines, second-tier PPC players, and more.

Start developing your international focus today. Don't make the mistake of ignoring 80% of your potential market—you can bet your competition won't!

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Statistical Resources:

Internet World Stats - INTERNET USAGE STATISTICS, The Internet Big Picture, World Internet Users and Population Stats

Computer Industry Almanac - Worldwide Internet Users Top 1 Billion in 2005. USA Reach Nearly 200M Internet Users.

Posted By Chris Keenan
www.bizmancan.com
Visit us to learn more about starting your own home business.

Has Google A New - 50 Penalty?

Webmasters in an online webmaster forum observed an anomaly in Google's results that might indicate a new Google penalty. Which websites have been penalized and could this affect your own website?

What has happened?

Many webmasters reported that their websites lost all of their top positions on Google and dropped to position 50 and below.

The problem is that the usual metrics shows that the websites are okay. For example, one of the websites was older than two years, the inbound links did not change and the Google PageRank in Google's toolbar also did not change. Another penalized website was older than 10 years.

Why have these websites been penalized?

There were several theories in the forum thread:

1. Spam on another websites

One theory was that the websites could have been penalized because the webmaster used spammy methods on another of his domains.

Even if your websites are not linked, Google can still know that you are the owner of both websites. They have several ways to find this out, including WHOIS information and Google accounts.

2. Links to spammy websites

Your website might link to spammy websites even if you don't want to do that. Website widgets, counters and other plugins sometimes put invisible links to other sites on your website.

The server might have also been hacked and there could be a link that you don't want on your website. (Editor's note: You can find a link checker in IBP: Tools > Broken link checker).

3. Paid links from .edu domains

A theory that looks very likely was the use of paid links from .edu domains. It seems that there are many hacked .edu servers that host websites on which these links can appear.

Paid links from other sites might also cause problems. If paid links from .edu pages really can cause a ranking drop then this would enable your competitors to harm your website by purchasing these links for your website.

What should you do now?

We think that it's likely that Google is working on its paid link filters and that paid links from .edu domains and other sites are the reason for the problems.

Stay away from paid links. Google doesn't like them and chances are that your website will get problems if you use them. Better focus on high quality organic links.

How To Create Trust For High Google Rankings

Trust is a major factor in Google's ranking algorithm. Some websites can get high rankings on Google for nearly any content they publish while other websites cannot get high rankings at all although they have optimized web page content.

A high trust level is crucial if you want to get high Google rankings

The reason why some websites do better than others is trust. Some websites have managed to reach a very high trust level with Google. That helps them to get higher rankings on search engines than you do.

Google doesn't want to list spam sites in the search results. For that reason, it is important to show Google that your website is for real, that you're not a spammer and that you plan to stay in business for a long time.

Here are some things you can do to show Google's algorithm that it can trust your website.

1. Things you should consider about your domain name

The age of a domain is important to Google. When you start a new online business, consider buying an old domain name if a suitable name is available.

If you start with a new domain, buy it with a renewal period of two years and more. You show Google that your domain is not a throwaway domain by doing so.

Check your WHOIS records and make sure that the contact information is correct. Do not use exotic top level domains. If you are in the USA, use .com, .net or .org. If you're in another country, use the official top level domain of your country.

Don't overuse hyphens in your URL. For example, www.keyword-keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4-keyword5.com might look spammy.

2. Things you should consider about your website content

Make your contact information easy to find on your website. List a full address and not only your email address on your website. The more information about your company can be found on your website, the more likely it is that it will be considered a real business.

Your website should have a privacy policy and terms and conditions (if applicable). Both should be linked from your sitemap.

Don't use doorway pages. They annoy search engine spiders and website visitors. Doorway pages are a clear indicator of a low quality website.

If possible, keep the HTML code of your web pages below 100 KB so that search engine spiders can crawl it easily. Regularly update your web pages to show Google that your website is alive.

3. Things you should consider about your links

Do not participate in automated linking schemes. If your website gets 2000 inbound links on a single day then Google might think that you try to game the algorithm with a link system.

The links to your website should contain your keywords but they should not all contain exactly the same link text. If all links to your website used exactly the same link text then this would be a red flag for Google.

Do not use paid links. Google does not like paid links and they might penalize your website if use them.

If Google trusts your website then it will be much easier to get high rankings. Of course, your website still needs optimized web page content and good inbound links. IBP can help you to get both.

Microsoft's new search engine Bing

Microsoft's Bing search engine has just become publicly available, allowing you to decide whether Microsoft's latest effort has the goods to take on Google. Bing is available at www.bing.com and replaces Live Search.

Microsoft is expected to spend $80 million to $100 million on Bing marketing which would be a nice hedge against Yahoo! because Bing will most likely take market share from Yahoo!.

Whether Bing ultimately succeeds or not, it will push Google to keep innovating search, and the new pay per click competition will ensure that Google doesn't get too greedy.

How is Bing different from Google?

Bing is not dramatically different from Google, but some people have found its results stronger. There are some visible changes:

• Bing shows a preview of the web pages in the search results when you hover your mouse pointer at the right side of the search results.
  
  
• Bing displays fewer results if it is certain that it has understood your intent. The search for "Facebook", for example, brings up just one result linking to the site itself.
  
  
• Some search results are divided into categories. For example, if you search for the popular musician "Justin Timberlake", you'll get results in the categories news, songs, movies, biography, wallpaper and downloads. In addition, the search results show images, videos and the popularity of the musician.
  
  
• Wikipedia searches can be displayed inline in the search results without leaving the Bing site by clicking the "Enhanced view" link.
  
  
• Bing features a different background image every day. The image contains special hidden hotspots that lead you to more information (soon advertising?) about the image.
  
  
• Despite the background image, Bing's homepage loads very quickly in your web browser because the search box and logo load first. You can turn off the background image.
  
  
• Bing's video search lets you watch videos without leaving the search engine.
  
  
• Bing offers specific health, shopping and travel search engines, as well as instant answers to travel searches. For instance, the search "Vegas hotels" displays a selection of hotels in Las Vegas, including hotel stars and prices.
  
  
• Bing's search history lets you return to your most recent searches of the last two days. This feature can be turned off to protect your privacy.
  
  
• Some of Google's features are missing, for example, Bing doesn't seem to recognize misspellings and returns no results in these cases.

Posted by Chris Keenan
www.bizmancan.com

Network Marketing Business Model Stands the Test of Time and is Now More Beneficial Than Ever

Network Marketing is a business model that incorporates the concept of buying high quality products from people that you know, like, and trust. Products are shipped from the manufacturer to the customer, and the only middle part of that is a distributor representing the network marketing company. There are no wholesalers, or advertising agencies, or any other entity in between. The concept of network marketing is for the distributor to connect with the customer in order to personally explain the value of the brand, the difference in quality of the products, and why buying from this brand will produce better results for the customer.

Highly regarded businessmen Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki believe in network marketing, especially for home-based and small business owners, and teamed up to write a book about it, “Why We Want You To Be Rich.” That being said, there are companies that have tarnished the reputation of network marketing by operating in underhanded or devious ways. Most of these companies do not last long, and many times there was not a reputable product to sustain the company. Unless there is a solid foundation of products that people want to buy, and even refer to others because of the benefits they receive, a network marketing company can not survive, much less flourish.

Network marketing was introduced to the world a very long time ago. I know that it is at least 53 years ago when my primary business launched under this business structure. People who are part of our brand believe that they pioneered the business model and are proud of it. Network marketers are business owners. It is their job to find customers and introduce them to products that are superior to those found in stores. If any of those customers want to have a home-based business of their own, it is the network marketer’s job to help them get started and provide support and leadership. Even though the network marketer takes on many hats in their business, they are not alone. Most parent companies provide training, support materials, all kinds of tools and services including home office staff. Upline business leaders help everyone in their group, and in general an unlimited amount of assistance is available.

The opportunity to earn income is unlimited in network marketing. A business owner can work under the premise that the sky is the limit in regard to how many people they introduce to their products, their business, the benefits and solutions that their products provide. They enjoy support while they are in charge of their own business. It is the best of both worlds because they are independent and yet they are not alone. Some feel that network marketing is the very best business model in the world today.

The internet has transformed network marketing companies. In the past, distributors would stock products and sell out of their homes or small businesses. Now, customers can order direct online, or by phone, and have products shipped from the company direct to the consumer. This saves a tremendous amount of time, inventory money, and offers the opportunity to use business time to reach more customers or spend more time educating customers on the value of the products. The internet also allows the opportunity to have a global business, connecting with people and business all over the world.

There are as many compensation programs in network marketing as there are companies, almost. It is worth the time and effort to compare income structures because there are vast differences involved. You might find one company that will pay out up to 50% while another company may limit earnings to as little as 10%. Product is as important as income. It is also worth the time and effort to research the company’s products, their value, the potential to find customers interested in buying, the market trends, and length of time the company has been in business. Another factor that interests potential consumers is that high quality products from companies with long-term legacies of success will have a guarantee established because the brand is confident in the performance of the products.

It may seem like there is a lot to consider when making the decision to join a network marketing company. It is more than worth your time invested, especially when you consider that for every successful home business network marketer, there is at least one that became associated with a failed company and may have lost both money and time that they can never get back. 53 years is the longest track record you will find in network marketing. A company that has a 53 year legacy of success, and is growing in distributors and expanding around the world, can offer a fantastic opportunity for a new network marketer. When the company’s products are in five major growth trends for the next ten years, it is not too late to get started. It is the perfect time to join and build the income of your dreams.

I invite you to learn what you can about network marketing. See if you agree with the folks that consider this business model one that anybody can use to earn income and build a significant business. Think about the lives that you can impact with both the products and the ability to refer the business opportunity as well. Consider the time freedom and financial security that you can enjoy when you are in charge of your personal and financial destiny. In 2009, the best network marketing companies have laid the foundation for you to not only get started and grow quickly, but also earn income right away. There is a definite need for immediate income and you can find companies that recognize this and have implemented programs to deliver that money immediately.

What I like best about the network marketing business model and the products that come from these companies is the personal communication involved and how unique and effective the products work. In today’s world, you often feel like a number ‘out there’ and it is hard to connect with a ‘live person’ to get help. And I know that I have purchased products, of all kinds, that simply do not live up to what they should. It is disappointing and you feel robbed of your hard earned money. With network marketing, that is different. There are people that you know, like, and trust behind the products and the business opportunity. They will answer your questions, and refer you to what can provide the solutions and results you seek. I prefer to use products from network marketing companies, whether that be nutrition, personal care products, home care products, computer products, or internet services. And it makes me feel good as a network marketer to offer this kind of value and service.

Posted by Chris Keenan
www.bizmancan.com

Ten Things That You Should Know About Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is not difficult if you understand the basic concepts. If you know what to do, your website will get the best possible rankings on Google and other important search engines.

The following list will help you to better understand SEO or to explain SEO to your clients:

Four things you should know about link building

1. Inbound links are very important
   
   The more websites link to your site, the easier it will be to get high rankings on Google. Google considers links to your site as votes for your site. The more votes your website has, the better your rankings will be.
   
   If more pages link to the website of your competitor, then it is likely that your competitor will get better rankings than you on Google.
   
   
2. It is important to get the right links
   
   In addition to the number of links to your website, Google also considers the quality of the links. Links from unrelated websites won't help your search engine rankings as much as links from related websites that deal with a similar topic as your website.
   
   A link from a trusted website that itself has many links pointing to it will help your search engine rankings more than a link from a website with few inbound links.
   
   
3. It is important to keep on link building
   
   Many of your competitors will continue to work on their links. If you don't keep on working on your links, your competitors will pass you in the search engine results sooner or later.
   
   
4. Google doesn't like paid links
   
   Google considers links to your site as editorial votes for its quality. A paid link is not editorial. Google's anti-spam team has asked webmasters to report paid links. If your competitors report your paid links, Google might penalize your website.

Three things you should know about web page optimization

1. Search engines rank single pages in the search results
   
   You should optimize a single page of your website for a single search term. Do not optimize the same page for more than one search term. It is much better if a web page is highly relevant to one search term than somewhat relevant to many search terms.
   
   
2. Google considers all pages of your website
   
   Although only a single page of your website will be listed in Google's search results for a search term, Google will consider all pages of your website. If you optimize different pages of your website for different keywords that are all related to a certain topic, then Google will think that your website is relevant to this topic and it will be easier to get high rankings for your keywords.
   
   
3. Optimized web page content and inbound links work hand-in-hand
   
   If your website has both optimized content and good inbound links then it will be much easier to get high rankings on Google.
   
   A web page that has been optimized for the search term "green widgets" and that has many links from other web pages that use the term "green widgets" as the link text is much more likely to get a top ranking on Google than a page that only has the inbound links or the optimized content.

Three things you should know about the technical aspects of your website

1. Redirects can cause problems
   
   Web page redirects have been used by spammers in the past. That is why search engines don't like it much. A 301 redirect is the only server side redirect that search engines interpret as a permanent redirect.
   
   All other redirects (except for a meta refresh redirect in some cases) don't pass the links from the old page to the new page and they might even be interpreted as a spamming attempt.
   
   
2. Search engines don't like duplicate content
   
   Google wants to list only one copy of a piece of content in the search results. If your web page contains the same content as another page on the web then Google will pick one version of the content for their search results.
   
   Google considers exact copies and near copies as duplicate content. Website navigation and boilerplate are usually ignored. Google compares your page's unique content with other pages and if it has a certain similarity to another page than it is considered a duplicate.
   
   
3. You can create duplicate content by mistake
   
   Technically, the URLs http://example.com, http://www.example.com and http://www.example.com/index.php can contain different content. That is why search engines treat them as separate pages.
   
   Only link to one version of these URLs. Otherwise, the other versions might be duplicates of the other.

SEO is not a black art. If you do the right things in the right order then you will get the best possible rankings on Google and other important search engines.

Your website must have optimized content and high quality backlinks from other websites. Our popular website promotion tool IBP helps you to get both.