AddThis: Helping Your Content Go Viral

We have tested several widgets at PowerHomeBiz.com to make it easy for users to share our content, and tap Web 2.0 sites to increase our traffic. And the tool we love the most — and using more extensively is AddThis http://www.addthis.com/ AddThis is a simple widget that you put into your site or blog, and visitors can bookmark, share or email your content. If you’re looking at a way to get your content into MySpace, Digg, Stumbleupon and other Web 2.0 sites, AddThis is a tool that can help you What we liked about AddThis is its ease of use.

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How to Improve Sales Technique: Learn from God

I’ve had for quite some time a copy of the book “God is a Salesman: Learn from the Master” by Mark Stevens, but I never had the interest to read it. Maybe it’s my strict Catholic upbringing that I don’t want God to be portrayed as a salesman, or maybe it’s because of the cheesy intro “Through the deep thought, spirituality, and philosophy that form the basic tenets of my life.” Okaaay! But after the initial trepidation, I found that it is actually a useful book. Cheesy, but nonetheless, insightful and useful. You just have to make sure that you

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Cost Effective Online Marketing Methods

One of the interesting data in the Shop.org/Forrester Research’s report “State of Online Retailing 2007” is the most cost effective online marketing method. Per the study, the amount of dollars online spent by an online retailer to get an order based on various methods are as follows: Email (to customer list) = $6.53 Affiliate program = $17.47 Paid search = $26.75 Banner ads = $71.89 Yet the average retailer (I surmise, average LARGE retailer) only spends about 10% of their marketing budgets or $311,196 on email, compared to $1.8 million spending on banners. Check your own marketing effectiveness, and how

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How to Use Web 2.0 to Get More Traffic for Your Website

YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Digg, Wikipedia are but some of the collaboration-focused websites that have changed the Internet. Called Web 2.0, these sites include social networking, social bookmarking, social tagging, wikis, among others. The question now is: how can you tap these Web 2.0 websites to boost traffic of your site and increase your reach? Here are six suggestions: 1. Make a list of Web 2.0 sites you want to tap. Depending on the type of content you have, prioritize sites that you think would work well for your content. Use Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List http://www.statsaholic.com/sethgodin to determine

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Video Contest for Small Businesses

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is sponsoring a video contest for small businesses where you create a 30-second clip that answers the question “Why does small business work for America ?” and submit the video to NFIB. Videos will be reviewed and entries will be posted on the NFIB YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/NFIBContest where viewers can rate them. A panel of judges will use those ratings to select semifinalists and an overall winner, who will receive a $5,000 cash award and a trip for two to Washington, D.C., including a stay at the Grand Hyatt Hotel for the

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Work at Home: Reshipping/Repackaging Middleman Scams

One of the rising work at home scams nowadays is what is called “repackaging or reshipping scams.” The modus operandi works like this: you may receive an unsolicited email or see a post on Craigslist or a job board telling you that you can get paid for acting as a middleman where your job is to accept goods and send them to a given address. Or you will sell items they will supply on eBay and will accept payment for them. These criminals are often based in the former Soviet bloc countries, with many coming from Russia. Sounds easy right?

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Reasons for Becoming an Entrepreneur

Why did you become an entrepreneur? Or if you are just planning to become one, why be an entrepreneur? Is it because: You love the idea of succeeding based on your own terms? You love the game and challenge of entrepreneurship? You want to become rich? You want to become financially secure? You know you can change the world with your business? You like to be financially secure? You enjoy giving back to the community? You feel you can do and gain so much more on your own outside the confines of employment? Or is it because you have no

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How to Build a Profitable Blogging Business

Scott Fox in his new book “Internet Riches: The Simple Money-Making Secrets of Online Millionaires” gave one of the best (yet succinct) explanations on how to turn your blog into a profitable business: By targeting a market of desirable consumers with timely and concise information that is hard to find elsewhere, it’s possible to build a blog publishing business with no employees and minimal overhead, using ost effective marketing and dministrative software services and the Internet to freely distribute your commentary The secret has always been simple: great content that offers value to its customers.

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How to Find International Manufacturers

If you have a product you want manufactured, going overseas may allow you to save on costs. However, the main question is: how do you find international manufacturers? One of the most popular destinations for those looking for international manufacturers and suppliers from China is Alibaba.com. The site can connect you to any Chinese manufacturer for whatever products you want to produce. Be careful though with “phantom” suppliers who will simply take your money and run without sending you the goods you ordered (and there are plenty of these horror stories). To protect yourself against these scammers, look for suppliers

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20 Questions to Ask When Selling a Business

I previously wrote about Questions to Ask When Selling a Business and a developed it into a more comprehensive article, this time with 20 questions. I started by asking “Why are you selling your business”” to “Have you identified the right buyers for your business?” to “What will the letter of intent and terms of sale specify?” and other important questions. Read about 20 Questions to Ask When Selling a Business

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Where to Find Suppliers for Your Business

PWhether you are thinking of starting a retail or online store (or even for eBay trading), one of the critical steps is to find suppliers for your business. If you want to sell, you need to find out where you can get the items you want at a price that would allow you to earn profit. Here are some places where you can find suppliers: 1. Trade shows. Trade shows are where manufacturers and suppliers gather looking for you — the potential buyer. As such, the best source of finding suppliers for your business is through attending trade shows. First

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Mom Entrepreneurs: 10 Rules for Doing Business

Kim Levine , the inventor of Wuvits or those little bags that provide soothing penetrating moist heat, has written a compelling account of how she started her business and all the ups and downs she experienced. Her book “Mommy Millionaire: How I Turned My Kitchen Table Idea into a Million Dollars and How You Can Too!” is a very good read if you want to learn what it is really like to turn a business into a success. I like the book because it is not self-serving and not one of those “I-am-great-hear-me-roar” ode to self. Instead, you’ll read about

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