Standing Out in the Crowd

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I know I'm either going to show my age with what I'm about to say or, worse, brand myself as hopelessly anachronistic. Regardless, I've found our current business culture to be increasingly impersonal. If you have any doubt about this, feel free to pick up a phone, dial up any of your service providers and try to get an honest to goodness living, breathing human being to talk to on the line. Sure, you may indeed get one, but you'll wear the skin off your index finger pushing the number pad trying to get through the automated prompts and you're likely to spend the better part of an hour waiting on hold waiting.

I probably shouldn't be using that example. I know, I've sold my fair share of those automated attendants in my time, but I wanted to make a point. We've become reliant on technology and doing business through computer proxy. It's the norm. Exceeding limitations means breaking out of the norm, though. Expanding your business takes more than doing what the rest of the crowd is doing. With that in mind, let me make a radical suggestion that really shouldn't be that radical, advertising with a personal touch.

No, you don't have to personally answer every single call that comes into your office. What I'm suggesting is to print business cards (if you've got out of date or monotone cards, update your wallet with professional, color business cards) and brush up on your social networking skills. I'm not talking about knocking on doors and hitting people with aggressive sales pitches. What I'm talking about is actively engaging people in your community. You shouldn't lead with your card, either. Save the business card for the tail end of your conversation, after you've made a personal connection. In the process, you'll make some friends, find new customers and become a more prominent and recognizable face in your community.

That's the key. When you put a human face on your business, people will feel more comfortable spending their money with you. Given the choice, most consumers would rather deal with someone they know in their community than another cold, faceless corporate entity. This works both ways too. Since your customers will be friends and neighbors instead of walking dollar signs, you'll find that your levels of service and commitment to delivering on your promises will increase, which will further bolster your customer base.

It's a win/win situation that requires a very minimal investment - just the cost of business card printing and a small expenditure of your time. It could be the thing that finally makes your business an enduring, local institution. Who knows, it might even inspire you to turn off the automated attendant and answer your phone when a customer calls. Hey, I can always dream, right?

For more information, you can visit this page on business card printing and color business cards

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Use This Tip To Increase Your Google Page Rank

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One of the most frequent questions I receive in regards to website popularity is about the Google page rank. I will refer to the Google page rank from hereafter as simply "GPR". It helps save on typing, and if you saw my typing skills you would understand.

All kidding aside and on a more serious note, the GPR is important for the simple reason that it determines where your website will appear in Google search results based on keywords entered by the person using Google.

The GPR is a value system which ranges from zero, the lowest value a web page can have, up to ten, which is the highest value that can be placed upon a web page. It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, the higher your GPR, the higher your site will appear when someone searches on keywords directly correlated to the content of your web site.

To put this in a more visual mode so you can better understand what I mean, lets take two websites that are for the most part nearly identical. For this example I will use the New York Times and The New York Daily News. Both newspapers offer news from the New York Metropolitan area as well as from around the world. Now let's say for instance someone types in search words such as "Derek Jeter Newspaper Article". Obviously the person is looking for articles on Derek Jeter the short stop from the Major League Baseball Team the New York Yankees.

Now lets say for the sake of our example, both newspapers have the same article in them and of course on their website. This is not uncommon as many papers will run stories that are distributed by the AP, the Associated Press.

The New York Times has a GPR of nine where the New York Daily News has a GPR of seven. Due to the fact that the New York Times is ranked higher, their story will appear higher on the search results list than that of the New York Daily News.

So why is this relevant? Google has published some statistics as has Yahoo! and some other major search engines that show the higher the listing the greater chance of someone clicking the result. Each result underneath gets clicked less and less, until usually by page three of the search results, your listing has virtually no chance of being clicked.

Now that you know how it works, and why it is important, the next obvious question would be how do I increase it? I can go into a variety of examples, which I may do in the future, but for the sake of this article I want to concentrate on one simple technique that really requires virtually no more effort than what you are doing now. That would be to update your site on a frequent basis.

In other words making it appear to the Google robot (the system that will crawl your website) that your site is active. That is because time is a factor in determining your GPR. Thousands of websites are started daily. To not put an extra strain on the Google robot most sites aren't crawled until three to six months after they go live. Why? Because most sites started today will be gone on average in about two to three months. As you can see this process by Google avoids unnecessary work.

Any SEO company that tells you that you can have a GPR of ten in a month you now know they would be lying to you. It is virtually impossible to do. The piece of advice you can take from this article is to keep your website active. Update your site's content often and let time be your best friend here. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will achieving a GPR of ten.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online resource and social network, where you can advertise your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Download Indocquent`s free social bookmark utility for your website or blog by Clicking here

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Yellow Pages Advertising - Is Your Yellow Pages Ad Putting Cash in Your Pocket or Sucking Cash Out

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by Alan Saltz

Any idea? It's a question that more than a few Yellow Page advertisers ponder. If you are currently spending money every month to run an ad in your local directory, you don't want to wrestle with that question. You want to know that your investment is generating a consistent flow of new clients to your business. So what can you do to maximize returns and stop worrying?

First of all, know this—Yellow Pages Advertising has incredible potential. As a business owner, you have few other ways to reach prospects who are as targeted, and ready to buy as these. But naturally… your success depends on the quality of your ad. And when it comes to ad content, far too many advertisers are quite simply… lost.



"The red-hot commodity of the Information Age? Why that would be the Yellow Pages… It's like shooting fish in a barrel."

Fortune Magazine



There are few places to turn. It makes for an unpleasant situation for the honest businessperson trying to harness the tremendous potential of such a perfectly targeted medium. And so, most advertisers rely on the Yellow Pages design department, who, as it turns out, develop most of the ads in their directory.

It's hard to differentiate your company if that's the case, don't you think?

That situation doesn't need to be one that you find yourself in. While many advertisers fail to develop an ad that draws a strong response, it's not especially difficult to do. In fact, the basic mistakes that "riddle" just about every subject heading provide a fantastic opportunity for the business owner that does his homework. If you're reading this article, you're doing your homework.



"How come we still have the Yellow Pages? They Work. You don't go to the Yellow Pages and look up pizza unless you're planning to order pizza."

Fortune Magazine



What Yellow Page success boils down to is ad content.

Not color. Not professional design. Sure, those things matter too; but they are nowhere near as important as the words you use to fill your ad. People turning to the Yellow Pages have already determined that they need you. They just need to know whether they should call company A, B, or C.

Their choice doesn't depend so much on color or design as it depends on what you do for your customers that your competitors don't... the policies you hold yourself to that give customers faith in you and your company... and your ability to present this information in a believable way.

Here is a point you need to understand…

Listing the brand names you carry and the "laundry list" of products or services you offer doesn't build credibility. It doesn`t set you apart from your competition either.

Plenty of other things do. And chances are you embrace those policies and those hassle/risk removing motivators already. You probably do quite a bit for your clients that make their lives easier, more lucrative, more pleasant, more hassle-free, and so on. You probably have "credibility boosters" that you've never considered including.

The good news is: Neither has your competition.


Since so many of your competitors are focusing on their company name and their laundry list of products and services, you make a strong case why a customer should prefer your company over the competition. Create an attention grabbing ad that differentiates your company as a different and better option than the rest.

After all, that's what the Yellow Pages are all about, right?!

Alan Saltz is the foremost Yellow Pages Advertising expert, renowned for teaching business owners how to boost Yellow Pages ad response and return on investment using simple but extremely effective techniques. To learn more about how to improve your own Yellow Pages ad, visit: http://www.YellowPagesProfit.com

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Increase Business Contacts By Sharing Valuable Information With Customers

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I was on my laptop last night doing some work when a friend of mine sent me an instant message through AOL's instant messenger, better known as AIM.

He is a novice to using Microsoft's Word program and needed some help on inserting a picture and being able to move it around and what not. Specifically he just had a new logo designed for his startup company and wanted to create a letterhead with the new logo.

He was a bit unsure as to how insert and move the picture so he sent me a message asking if I could step him through it. Of course I said yes and then proceeded to give him the steps necessary to complete his mission.

This got me to think about how to assist our clients so they can attract more visitors to their websites. What a better way for them to do this than to pass on knowledge about whatever it is they are selling or providing in the form of products and services.

From my example above you can see that although the task at hand was a simple one, for someone that does not know how to do it, it is great knowledge. You need to pass your knowledge on as well. However you do not want to give away the farm.

For instance, let's say you run a landscaping business. You obviously would not give out ten tips on how to help save money by cutting your own grass. Instead you would give away tips on the best times of the day to water your lawn or how often to water your lawn and so on.

You can give this information away by having people visit your website and registering some contact information or make it as a free give away with their first lawn cut. Whatever you choose give this information away as an exchange for something that you need. Contact information would be best as it generates leads for more business.

You are in business for a reason and chances are that reason is because you are really good or an expert at what ever it is you do. You can still share valuable information to a consumer without giving away the farm so to speak and losing your business.

This practice has been around for generations so I won't sit here and tell you that it is something new or innovatively creative. However it is very useful and extremely helpful.

Your next step is to now sit down and write up some tips that can help you customers and potential customers and determine what you need in return for your valuable information. Once you have completed the information you will distribute you can then construct the vehicle by which you will distribute your information for their information.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Don`t forget to download Indocquent`s FREE website bookmark utility at http://www.indocquent.com/social_bookmark/social_bookmark_landingpage.html.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Good Tips To Increase Your Website`s "Stickiness"

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Since I started doing some research for a friend of mine I have come across a wide variety of great web sites. They sing, they dance, the make you laugh, they….you get the point. I have visited hundreds if not thousands of web sites all with their own niche to make them unique.

There is one term I have learned over the many years of developing and maintaining web sites and that term is called "stickiness". This term simply means your web site's ability to not only attract visitors, but keep them coming back.

Take for instance the social networking website MySpace. On a scale from one to ten with ten being the highest I would consider MySpace having a rating of ten for stickiness. You can send an receive messages through MySpace, post bulletins and a slew of other tools, that I will not go into at the moment, to make people keep coming back to log in to their accounts.

That brings us to the topic of the day and that is if you had to rate the "stickiness" of your website would it be closer to one or ten? Most websites all start out at one. Over time you develop different tools, content and techniques related to what your site is all about that will make people eager to keep coming back.

If you feel you are more near the "one" end of the scale, think of some ways you can keep people coming back. For instance if you are a mortgage or lending site, add some finance calculators on their so your visitors can do some quick calculations. If you run a landscaping business offer daily tips on how a consumer can maintain their lawn properly. For us we are all about keeping business owners motivated so we post a different motivational quote each day.

I have seen other websites offer a "poll of the day" or a "survey of the day" and so on. The list is endless. Whatever it is you choose should be related to what your website is about. If you sell baseball cards it wouldn't make much sense to do a daily poll about politics now would it? Probably not.

It does not even need to be polls, surveys, quotes or questions. I have seen some websites have stickiness just by pure content. They change the content on a daily sometimes hourly basis. People keep coming back to read what is on there.

You will need to find out what your "stickiness" will be. Sit down and write up what your website is all about, what you want to accomplish with it and so on. Once you have that written down, now write a list of ten things that you feel people would keep coming back to see over and over again. Remember studies have shown that people need to be exposed to something seven times before they make a purchase or sign up for it. Put your plan in place to keep those same visitors coming back over and over.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

How To Improve Your Website In 3 Simple Steps

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Over the past few days I have been doing some research on a variety of topics. I have visited website after website looking for the information that I need. Who would have ever thought the internet would have become this vast? I am convinced that if I tried to hit every website out there it would take me ten lifetimes.

Regardless of that, I noticed something else about many websites out there. A lot of them are just plain garbage. Forget about the adult oriented, pornographic websites, we know they are garbage. I am talking about the sites that are meant for good purposes. Informational purposes. Educational purposes. Those websites.

In this article I want to address three of the items that I found to be a bit annoying in the hopes that you may make some adjustments to improve your own website.

A lot of websites today like to use flash intros, videos and some type of "neat" animation. Now that is fine if your business is in entertainment, video production and sound, however they waste the time of your visitors. Internet surfers are for the most part, impatient. They do not want to sit through video while it is loading. If you are using some type of video make sure it is worth having because you might be losing potential customers who are sitting around and waiting.

Next what are you really using your website for? Now you might say, "it is obvious, I am selling widgets." You would be right. To you it may be obvious of what you are selling, but to visitors it may not be. Make sure on your home page you post a quick statement about your site, what it is for and so on. Do not forget to add an "About Us" link so visitors can click on something that will educate them about your website and/or company. We did this on our site and it has helped tremendously. If people go to your site and they are not sure what your site is about, chances are they will just leave.

Finally, neat, clean, organized and speed. All items which I found are lacking today in a lot of websites. Your website should be streamlined. In other words, it should be easy on a visitor's eyes, look well organized (in other words people can find what they are looking for), and most importantly, visitors should be able to surf your site without long loading delays. The use of AJAX, which I won't go into in this article, has helped tremendously with long load times, by allowing data to be loaded on the screen without having to refresh the entire page. A really good website that I found which meets all of these is Charity Navigator. It is visually appealing, the load times are quick, I know what I can get out of that site from the home page and I can find everything I need.

Is your website guilty of any or God forbid all of these? If it is, try tweaking it a bit and make those changes. It may help lead to more visitors, customers and profit.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Google Page Rank - Your Key To Higher Search Results

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I was sitting in front of my computer last night, getting ready to do some research for a project that I was working on. A friend of mine promotes various events around the country so he asked me to help him out with the "finding of stuff", as he puts it, or gathering information as I call it.

For whatever strange reason, I am passionate about doing research. Not scientific research, although I am sure that is exciting as well, I am talking about information research. The ability to locate something that can help with a business plan, research paper, or some other type of periodical, is rewarding to me.

While working on my friend`s research project, I invariably began with the gold standard of search engines, Google. Beyond their ability to offer keyword related ads that appear in the sidebar in which they overcharge with pay-per-click prices, Google really does a nice job when it comes to the "free" results.

These "free" results are based on the search criteria that a user enters into the search box. Those terms, better known as keywords, are then run through the top secret Google algorithm. It is this algorithm that indexes every page on the internet in the order by keyword importance. So in other words, although you may find two web sites that have good information on lets say stem cell research, one site will appear higher on the search rankings then another based on the Google algorithm.

The Google ranking system, or more commonly known as page rank, is the numerical ranking system by which Google orders every page on the internet. Although no one but the Google founders really knows the exact mathematical computation of the algorithm, all experts do agree to the fact that page rank is based on popularity and importance.

So how does one's web page become popular? Very simply put, when Google crawls the internet it counts the number of links from other web sites that point to another. When Google sees a web site point to another in the form of a link, it marks the site being pointed to as being important. In other words why would a site point to another if there wasn't something in there that had value?

That is the basic definition. The algorithm gets a bit more complicated. Let's say your website has a link pointing to it from the NY Times. We have all heard of the NY Times. It is the most read newspaper in the country, and their website receives literally millions of page hits a day. In the Google algorithm not all links are created equal. Each link is given a weight value or the value of the page that it sits on. So for instance in our example above, the NY Times website has a Google page rank of 9. The highest your site can be is a 10 and the lowest is a 0. So as you can see with a Google page rank of 9, Google looks very favorable upon the NY Times.

A link from the NY Times to your website would carry more weight and more importance than that of another site whose page rank is 0. Having a link from a web site whose rank is 0 is not a bad thing; it just means you will need more of them to matter in the Google algorithm, whereas having a link from a web site with a page rank of 9 will increase your own page rank faster.

The first question that might pop into your mind is how in the world do I get other websites to point back to mine? Although I won't go into complete detail with each example in this article, here are few you can try right away.

Join a forum, social network, groups, clubs etc., on the internet that is related to your website. Join in the discussions and in your signature line (which most sites allow), post your web site link with a description of it. Each time you post in a conversation, your link is posted as well. Do not spam. That is the fastest way to get banned and lose credibility.

Write article content for other websites. You have a website about something. You should be spreading your knowledge to everyone. A good way of doing that is to write articles on the subject that people will read, find interesting and learn from. Then at the bottom of each article write what is called a resource box. In this resource box, write a short description of you, your website and then post a link to your website so people reading your article can check it out.

Finally, another good way, but a bit more time consuming is to find websites that are similar in content to yours and ask them to exchange links with you. In other words ask them to post a link on their site to your site and then you will do the same. These are called reciprocal links.

So there you have it. That is Google's page rank in its basic form and some ways to help improve your own site.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.