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The Perils of Cheating

A Yahoo Answers user has been emailing me for weeks asking about the contextual advertising program Google Adsense. We run Adsense here at PowerHomeBiz.com and it’s an advertising program that has worked really, really well for us. After several back and forth of emails where I explained to him how the program works and offered him tips on how he could earn more from the program, he finally said that he’s been clicking on his own ads. Not just once or accidentally, but every day. In fact, he even goes to various cyber cafes in his city just to click

Surviving the Zoning Laws

One of the perils of running a home-based business is running afoul of the zoning laws. Worse, the zoning officials can force you to close down your business. Sounds unreal? It may be so, but there have been many instances when home businesses have been forced to shut down because they were found to be in violation of zoning restrictions. Zoning laws are designed to preserve a neighborhood’s residential character and thereby maintain property values. Some zoning regulations are stricter than others. In some areas, home businesses Could operate only on a part-time basis. Are limited in terms of the

Business Idea: Starting a Personal Chef Business

If you like spending time in the kitchen and cooking for other people, you may want to consider starting a personal chef business. Personal chefs prepare personalized meals typically in the homes of their clients, then package it and prepare detailed instructions for reheating. Cheaper than private chefs, they are in high demand in urban areas by families who wish to spend more time together, young professional couples or singles who enjoy eating tasty meals without the hassles of cooking. To succeed in this business, you need to have the following skills: superb culinary skills time management skills great in

Tips on Negotiating from a Successful Real Estate Entrepreneur

I just got the book “The Peebles Principles”, a first person account of R. Donahue Peebles — head of a real estate development company The Peebles Corporation who made his fortune from scratch. He made his mark in Washington DC area, but his crowning achievement was the establishment of the Royal Palm Crowne Plaza, which became the first African American-owned resort in the U.S. Peebles’ book is surprisingly very informative with lots of tips on how could one start wheeling and dealing in the real estate world. Peebles may not be as well known as Donald Trump, but his book

Impact of Getting Top 10 Rankings in Google

We all know the importance of getting top 10 rankings in Google for our most important keywords. But what exactly can being in the top 10 give your site? Oneupweb.com has an interesting white paper that quantifies the impact of getting a top 10 ranking in Google. According to their study, getting on the top 10 increases your traffic and conversion. Their research shows that: The month prior to listing in the top 10 of Google, their test site showed that it averaged 14 unique visitors per search term The first month the site appeared in the 1-10 search result

The Mistake of Setting Unrealistic Expectations

I just watched the DVD of the movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith. Will Smith’s character signed a dealership agreement with a bone density scanner machine company to become the exclusive distributor in the San Francisco area. He had such great expectations about the business, which unfortunately turned out to be unrealistic. Doctors found his machines to be expensive and an “unnecessary luxury.” Like Smith’s character in the movie, one of the common mistakes made by startup entrepreneurs is setting unrealistic expectations about the business. When we start our businesses, we are often so full of optimism that

How to Start and Succeed in a Freelancing Career

I recently posted about the Common Mistakes to Avoid When Freelancing , and I got a number of interesting feedback with people sharing their own mistakes while freelancing. So now I’d like to look at the flipside and offer tips on how you can succeed as a freelancer by starting your freelancing career on the right foot: 1. You must have the right reasons for wanting to be a freelancer. Everything starts with the motive: why do you want to be a freelancer? How do you see the life of having no job security or benefits? If despite all the

A Lesson in Finding a Profitable New Target Market: Case of Western Union

Marketing

I was leafing through my old issues of Business 2.0 magazine and I came across a 2004 article on Western Union and how it has successfully reinvented itself by going after a new market: the foreign-born workers. Western Union was at one time the monopoly national communications company, especially in the 19th century up until the 1930s. During the heyday of telegrams, Western Union was the mammoth company of its times. But as modernization ensued, the company struggled and even went into bankruptcy in the 1990s. By then, they have refocused their business to moving cash from one part of

How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business

Online Media Daily has an interesting article on how to use YouTube (which the article describes as the “Holy Grail” nowadays) to market your business. The article lists some strategies: Always go entertainment over brand. Make it feel low budget. The higher quality the less the video tends to spread. Find something that’s already accepted and back your brand into it. Make it feel chaotic. Keep it loose. Be brave. For smaller brands, engage the audiences by answering the comments made on your video

The Challenge of Getting Traffic to Your Website

Getting traffic for established sites is hard; and the challenge becomes infinitely tougher for new websites. One of the commonly used way to generate traffic nowadays is to use pay per click advertising in the search engines. Unfortunately, pay per click advertising is not only costly, but rife with fraud as well. According to investigative search firm Click Forensics , the industry average click fraud rate was 14.8% for the first three months of 2007! That’s a pretty high rate, especially for a small and home-based business. Imagine if you’ve got only $1,000 to spend a month on pay per

Tips on Advertising Your Business

We recently had an issue with an advertiser regarding the creative for their text link. He wanted to use the phrase “Cool links” for their text ad. We told him that our audiences are not likely to respond to that text ad, but he insisted. True enough, his ad hardly got any clickthrough at all — our audiences are typically looking for ways to make money, and they are not looking for “cool links.” When you advertise, whether you are using a banner, text ad or print campaign, you have to remember that your creative must meet 3 important checks:

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Freelancing

Freelancers are all self employed who enjoy being their own boss and the freedom associated with being a freelancer. If you want to freelance, here are common mistakes to avoid