A Checklist for Secure Online Shopping

It is a pity, but you can’t trust every web-shop. Below we will give a checklist which can be used to buy more secure online. This checklist is not only for web-shop customers, but also for web-shop owners. They can also use this checklist to see if their web-shop complies on most of the described things.

Below you will find the checklist for secure online shopping. Never use one of the described things, but always use a combination of multiple items described below.

• Every web-shop should have a contact address, telephone number and e-mail address on their website. Always check for them.
• Check for reviews of the particular web-shop. Did people give good or bad reviews?
• Is the web-shop clear about the quality of the products, the service they deliver and the warranty they offer?
• Is there clear information on the site about the price, FAT, delivery costs, delivery time, etc?
• What are the condition for sending back a product and getting back your money clear?
• Do they describe what to do if you have a complained?
• Can you see what products there are in the shopping-cart?
• Never give more personal information then is really necessary. (Web-shop should only ask for the necessary, people don’t like to fill in or to give a lot of personal information.)
• Check for hallmarks.
• Is payment secured with SSL? (The URL is not http but https.) Can you find any information about it on the website? (It should be clear before you start the payment process.) Always look at lock (down-right in the browser) if https is used. It should be locked (closed.)
• Always save a copy or print from correspondent e-mails, conformation of an order and terms of the web-shop.

If you follow the described things above you will shop online more secure. Web-shop owners should at least have the information on their web-shop that is described above.

What people Buy Online Survey Results

People are still buying more and more online each year. We asked a couple of questions to almost 1500 online buyers and the results where as follow:

What products do you mainly buy online?
(Note: multiple answers where possible.)

1. DVD/CD/Books - 23,2%
2. Book a vacation online - 22,6%
3. Computer hardware - 19,7%
4. Computer software - 11%
5. Audio/Video equipment - 3,8%
6. Clothes - 3,6%
7. Music - 1,8%
8. Other - 45%

Do you watch if the web shop is secure?
(Note: multiple answers where possible.)

1. Yes, watch for hallmarks - 52,8%
2. Yes, search for physical address - 30,4%
3. Yes, look for references - 25,5%
4. Yes, other - 14,9%
5. No - 9,6%

Did you ever had a bad experience with online shopping?

1. No - 81,2%
2. Yes - 18,8%

What where the bad experience that you had with online shopping?
(Note: multiple answers where possible.)

1. Never delivered - 43,6%
2. Late delivery - 23,2%
3. Wrong delivery - 17,8%
4. Did not like product - 16,8%
5. Product did not work (right after delivery) - 13,4%
6. Problem with payment - 13,4%
7. Problem after sending back the bought product- 10,4%
8. Other - 14,2%

Did you ever bought a product outside your own country?

1. Yes - 52,8%
2. No - 47,2%

How much do you spend on average when you buy a product online?

1. $50 - $100 - 36,1%
2. $100 - $250 - 19,3%
3. $25 - $50 - 26,7%
4. $10 - $25 - 8,7%
5. $250 - $1000 - 8,1%
6. Less then $10 - 0,8%
7. More then $1000 - 0,5%

Turning a Hobby into a Profitable Business

Most people have an activity that they love so much, that they do it even if they aren’t paid for it. But what if you can turn your hobby into a business? Isn’t this even better, getting payed for something you love? But how do you do it and what are some pitfalls?

The first critical step is to determine the commercial viability of your hobby. Yes sure, your family or friends love whatever you are doing with your hobby, but are they willing to get out the check-book to pay you to do more?

For instance: you make pie’s for your hobby. Everybody loves them. But are they willing to pay for it? Maybe you can make a batch of pie’s and try to sell them on a farmers market. This way you can determine, if people are willing to pay for them and how much a pie is worth. (Give it a go for a couple of weeks.)

After you know that a hobby is commercially viable, you can make your business plan and turning your hobby into a business.

Act Like a Business

One of the largest pitfalls of turning a hobby into a business is failing to make the complete transition from amateur to professional. Don’t play a business, but act like a business owner! You need to take care of the following tasks:

• Open a separate bank account for the business. You need an account that is strictly for business income and expenses. This way you can determine quickly how well you are doing. Also it will make you look more professional to suppliers and other businesses.

• Try to get a credit card for your business. Put it in your business name. If the card is in the business name, it will help you to establish business credit.

• Maintain complete and accurate records. Start a record-keeping system right away and have the discipline to keep them up to date. Use bookkeeping software like quicken, it will help you tremendous.

• Ask a tax advisor for specifics on how you can deduct business expenses. Sometimes it is also possible to deduct purchases that are made before you turned your hobby into a business. Just ask a tax advisor, they can help you with this.

• If you don’t have a lot of money in the beginning of business start-up then you have to be resourceful. Try to make deals with other business, maybe they have something you want and you maybe have something that they need.

• Listen to your customers. With a hobby, you only needed to satisfy yourself. But with a business you need to satisfy the customers. If ask them, customers will tell you what they need and want. Just ask, asking is free.

Don’t Ditch your Day Job at Business Startup

It is not always practical to ditch your day job at business start-up. For one thing you need a steady income to pay your bills, like mortgage, utility bills, etc. Sure, you need to work full time on your business eventually, but you can make the transition gradually. This way you have an income from your regular job, while you built on your business.

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Below you find some tips how to keep you motivated while working part-time on your business:

1. Find a partner
If you don’t have a co-founder then try find one or find a business partner. For a part-time effort, they are essential to keep you on track and working. At some point, you’ll hit a motivation wall. If you have a partner, you don’t want to let him/her down, so you will keep on working even if the motivation is gone. Also you can discus your motivation problems with your partner and together you can find a way to fix that problem.

2. Point in the week
Pick a day (or more) per week when you work on your business. Preferably you work in the same room as your business partner or your co-founder. And stick to that day, don’t make up excuses, always work that day. This schedule will keep your business building on track.

3. Set targets
You have to set targets. Especially the target when you think it will be safe to start working on your business full time. Discuss this with your co-founders or business partners. Nothing is worse than one person of the team is ready earlier to go work full-time on the business before the other person is ready. So set a target and both should stick to it.

4. Pick a tractable idea
Always pick a tractable idea for your business, because you start a business on a theory and you don’t have a lot of time to test that theory. Some ideas won’t work if you only have time to work on it part-time. So be flexible. Test your idea quickly and if it doesn’t work, change it to something that will work.

5. First versions
Most first versions of a product or service are probably going to suck. The sooner you understand this the better it is. It will keep you away from disappointment and motivation problems. No first version is going to be a hit. Just make it a little better every week until you, your business partner(s) and most of all your customers, are happy with the result.

6. Regular Job
Everybody use some time for themselves when they are at work. One person gets a cup of coffee and the other likes to browse a little on the net. If you are smart you use that time also for your business start-up.

An example: if you’re a coder, then read about new things and techniques in your field. This is good for you and for your boss. And the best thing is, the knowledge you gained you can use for your own business.

But remember, always and I mean always do the job where you are paid for. It is a thin line between using your cool down time at work for your business start-up and stealing time from your employer.

One thing: make that you only learn in the time from your employer. Anything that is build or written during working hours is technically owned by your boss. So if you program the next FaceBook during working hours, it is technically from your boss. (And they will most likely win if they fight it out in court.)

In conclusion
Try to keep motivated and try to pass the “hobby” or part-time phase as soon as possible!
Best of luck for you and your business!

Critical Elements of an Ad

Every business owner must work hard to have success. But does your advertising work as hard as you? Does it do everything you want it to do?

So let’s look at the four most critical elements of an ad to get the most results of that ad.

Your ads must do four vital things:

1. Stimulate a response
Your ad has to stimulate a customer to do something, such as visiting your website for instance. But they only do that if you give them a reason to do it. For instance a print ad should start with a benefit-laden headline and it should explain the features of the action you want them to take.

An example for a programming website: Find all free tutorials you want on our website. More then 1000 downloadable source code examples. Visit us at (the link to the site place here) and start downloading.

As you can see it shows the features in just two sentences and it ends with call to action which points out (again) the main feature of the site.

2. Open minds
We get bombarded with information all day. So an ad has to provide the prospects with a small “a-ha” moment, otherwise a prospect won’t pick up the information. They must pick up the information that you are offering a new revelational service or product that the prospect must have. For instance the “a-ha” moment can be a special offer or a low price.

An example: Get the new and improved way to do business with this business system that will make your business a lot more money and will save you a lot of time. Read all about it in this E-Book “Title here” for only $9.99! Buy it today!

As you can see it will get the attention with the words “new and improved way” and also show the main features of the business system with the words “more money” and “save you a lot of time.”

3. Engage the right people
As we said before we get bombarded with an enormous amount of advertising all day. The ads that you run must have an immediate appeal to your targeted prospects or they wouldn’t even notice the ad. The prospects should instantly think, “That is what I need.”

It helps if the prospects can see themselves represented in your ads. You need to create an ad campaign to which your potential customers can easily relate to. Put yourself in there shoes if you are writing an advertising campaign.

4. Be true
Most people and thus potential customers can spot a good to be true ad a mile away. What’s more, they’re often likely to disbelieve advertising claims, even when they are true.
So the ads that you run must be credible. Don’t promise things that you can’t deliver.
Create your ads with integrity that are supported by in-depth information, and you will successfully propel your prospects towards a sale.

10 Money Saving Tips on Water in your Garden

If you don’t pump your own water out of the ground then money will probably cost you money. So wasting water is like wasting money.

Also take a look at how you can save money on water in your home.

We will give you ten water saving tips for your garden, so that you can save money on your water bill:

1. Planting New Garden Beds
Group plants with similar watering needs together as this helps ensure they all receive the correct amount of water.

2. Plant Selection
Before buying plants checkout which plants are most compatible with the climate and soil in your area. The right plants can save you a lot of money on water.

3. Efficiently Water Use
Use watering cans or trigger nozzles on hoses so that you water only those areas that need it.

4. Watering your Lawn
Check if your lawn needs to be watered by walking on it. If an impression of your foot remains it needs water. Do not use water any sooner and also water the lawn only at night (during the day time most water is evaporated because of the suns heat.)

5. Watering your Plants
Water the base of plants, not the leaves. Also check how quickly the soil absorbs the water before it runs off.

6. Mulching
Applying a layer of mulch at a depth of 10 cm around plants will reduce water evaporation by up to 70 per cent.

7. Cleaning
Try to use a broom or rake rather than a hose to clean driveways and pathways of debris.

8. Washing your Car
Wash your car on the lawn so that you water and fertilise the grass at the same time. Most of the car shampoos use phosphates that are similar to many of the fertilisers that you can buy.

9. Weeding
Remove weeds as soon as they spring up. Weeds not only shelter diseases but are also notorious water thieves. So removing them as soon as possible will save you water if you watering the plants.

10. Water Crystals
Add water crystals to soil to enhance water retention by up to 40 per cent. This way you can save a lot of money on water.

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10 Money Saving Tips on Water in your House

If you don’t pump your own water out of the ground then money will probably cost you money.

So wasting water is like wasting money.

We will give you ten water saving tips, so that you can save money on the water bill:

1. Drinking Water
Do like cold water to drink? Then place a container of water in the fridge. This way you don’t have run water down the plughole waiting for the water the cool.

2. Washing Vegetables
If you wash your vegetables before cooking then do this in a plugged sink. The same goes for rinsing dishes. Rinsing or washes under a running tap will waste a lot of water and thus money!

3. Thawing frozen foods
Don’t thaw frozen foods under running hot water, but wrather thaw them on a dish in the fridge or in a microwave.

4. Cooking Vegetables
Microwave, steam or use a pressure cooker to cook vegetables, to retain more flavour and use less water than traditional boiling.

5. Washing
Wait for a full load before turning on the washing machine. This will save you a lot of money in the long run.

6. Shorter Showers
You should take shorter showers. This will save one bucket of water every minute you shower less.

7. Bathroom
Put a plug in the sink when shaving rather than rinsing your razor under running water.

8. Shower head
Install a water saving shower head. This will save you a lot of money on water if you combine it with number 6.

9. Toilet
Get a half flush toilet. (One that has a flush full button and half flush button.) Use the half flush and save up to three buckets of water per day.

10. Repair leaking toilets
Check for leaks in your toilet by adding food dye to the cistern. If color appears in the bowl within half an hour it is time to do some “Do it Yourself” or call a qualified plumber.

How to Come Up with New Online Business Ideas

Large companies have people working full time to come up with new business ideas. Most of them have innovation departments who are working on new ideas or procedures they can use to generate new profits. Or they have the money to hire think tanks or have universities do research for them.

Most small companies don’t have the resources to do what it described above.

So, what tactics can a small online business use to come up with some new business ideas?

Here are some strategies that can be used by small online businesses to come up with some ideas, without wasting money:

1. Combination
Look for intersections between old or new ideas. Try to find where they can merge into an entirely new product. This tactic is used by many large companies.

An example: maybe you have some old articles lying around. Can’t you use them to make a new E-Book? Or some old source code combined with a new front end could be a new product.

2. Prototyping
Many of the large companies use this tactic. They come up with an idea and they make a prototype to see if it will work.

The same can be done by you, for instance: you have an idea for an online course. You want to use video for your course, but before you make the video you make some articles or free rapport about the same subject and test the response of the potential customers.

This way you don’t throw money away on producing a video that won’t sell.

3. Backwards thinking
Instead of implementing a new basic idea right away you use “backwards thinking” to come up with a way that is practical from a cost and technology perspective. This way you won’t waste money. (See also 2. Rapid prototyping can be used for this.)

4. Idea box
If you have employees then you can set money aside for an idea fund. For instance: if the employees think of a new way to make money online, a new product or a cost reduction idea, then they should write it down on a piece of paper and put it in a idea box. Once a month you collect all ideas and the potentially good idea are rewarded with x amount of money. This is a good way to motivate your employees to express good ideas. Try it! You’ll be amazed where they will come up with.

5. Percentage
Another way to motivate your employees to come up with new ideas that will make the business money is letting them spend time on a project of their own. Google uses this for instance. They let their employee’s work 20% of the time on their own projects. I know, I know, small companies can’t loose 20% of the time of every employee, but you can figure out an amount that will work with your business.

6. Think tank session
Hold a think tank session, with employees, friend, family or your spouse. (Or even with your children. Depends on type of business you’re in.) Hold such a session once a month or once every other month. Make sure that it is fun. For instance: light up a barbecue, get some drinks and snacks. You’ll be amazed where people can come up with! Give it a go!!

15 Linkbaiting Techniques

As said before in the “How to get more incoming links” article, ‘link-baiting’ is a term that is used to describe the practice to get incoming links to your website.

We can’t give you a definitive list because people make up new things all the time, but with the list below you can start your own link-baiting campaign!

But before we start I’ve to mention two things:

• We don’t endorse all the techniques described below, some are good, and others are of questionable nature. But with all things on the net, people still use them. It is up to you if you use them or not.
• Not all people use the techniques below to get links; some have all kinds of different motivation to use the techniques. In those cases the links they get are just a side effect.

So take a look at the link-baiting techniques that are commonly used by webmasters on the net:

1. Quizzes - People like quizzes, surveys, puzzles or test. Make sure that you have a nice image button that people can use in their articles.

2. Tools - Website owners or users like free useful or fun tools that they can use on their own website or blog. Make sure you at a link to your website in the tool. An example is wordpress, it’s free and they add link in the footer of every blog. Sure, some people will take the link out, but most don’t. It will get you a lot of incoming links.

3. Contests - People like to participate in things. Contests for instance, people love them, especially if there are great prices to be won.

4. The first - if you are the first to mention or do something in your niche most likely people in the same niche will link to your article or video. Like that guy that traded a red paperclip for house.

5. Scoops - this is related to being the first. If you can break a story (for instance the first to tell that Apple is making a new laptop) people will link to it. If the story is big enough the incoming links will come fast.

6. Humour - People like to laugh, so bring news or a story with some humour mixed in then people will link to it. Everybody knows those funny e-mails that are send around the office, if you can make such an e-mail with a link to your website inside then you are golden (if the e-mail is funny of course.)

7. Lists - People like useful list, like the list on this site for instance “150 Essential Business or Freelancing Tools and Resources” all the tools you need to setup your business on one webpage. Why do you think that people often post links on social sites like digg or del.icio.us? They love list.

8. Awards - Everyone loves to win an award, especially if it is from a respectable source. So if you are considered a specialist in a specific field, maybe you should introduce an award for your field.

9. Can’t do themselves - Give people something that they can’t do themselves. For instance: maybe you are a very good web designer. Then you should make a blog theme that people can download from your site. Or you are photographer; you can give them free pictures for their websites (only to be used it they link to your site of course.) The list is endless, just look at your skills and make something.

10. Rants - a good and well written rand can create a lot of buzz, thus getting you a lot of incoming links. But be careful, it can also backfire. The community can turn against you.

11. Controversy - Controversial post or articles can get a strong reaction from people and thus a lot of incoming links. But as with the rants, you have to be careful that it doesn’t backfire.

12. Statistics or research - well researched articles can attracted a lot of incoming links. The same for statistics from surveys for instance can attract a lot of links. An example: a website could take a survey among their readers about what the readers buy online. The results are then published in a separate article.

13. Community - people like to belong to something, like a community. If they have their own website, they most likely will link to the community website. So, try to build a community. Note that I say try, it’s hard to build a community.

14. Forum - as with a community people loves to link to forums. The questions and answers given on a forum will attracted a lot of incoming links. Another good thing is that the people on forums create the content of your website for you.

15. Give something away - People like free stuff! You can create a great buzz by giving something away and thus getting those incoming links.

Note: the link baiting techniques described above may overlap or used at the same time.

As said before this is not a complete list of link-baiting techniques but if you can do some of these things, you will get those most wanted incoming links!

How to Get more Incoming Links

One of the most important search engine optimization aspects is getting those incoming links. Of course getting them from a respected website is a must.

Asking for links as in link exchange campaign can take a lot of time and effort. But there are much easier ways and they taking less time! One of these ways is making lists. What for lists you may ask? It is all up to you, you choose!

The purpose of making the list is link-baiting. Link-baiting is making content for the purpose of incoming links. The content has to be important or at least interesting enough so that people want to link to it.

In this article we will discuss two link-baiting examples:

Example 1: A list of links to other websites

In the first example we will discuss making a list of links to other websites. Pick a subject, find top websites and make a link list.

Of course a short description per link will make it more interesting. An example can be found on this site, take a look at “150 Essential Business or Freelancing Tools and Resources” this is a good example. As you can see, it is easy to make, but it will get you incoming links.

Not everybody knows internet marketing so I will give you some more examples:

• Computer store: You can make a lot of list for a computer store. You can for example make a list on how to make your computer faster or on the best video cards. Another example is a list on the largest hard disks for the best price.

• Travel website: Not everybody speaks the language of their travel destination. So, make a list of travel destinations and link to online travel dictionaries.

This is just some examples. You can make a list on almost everything.

Example 2: Write a manual

Another way of getting incoming links is writing a manual on a specific subject. For instance you can write a manual on how to optimize your Adwords campaign.

It cost you more time then making a list, but it’s worth it. It not only gets you those incoming links but it can also set you as an expert in a specific field. You have to make sure that the quality of the manual is excellent and the links will come.

I will give you some other examples:

• Travel website: You could write a manual on the culture of different countries and how the traveler should cope with the culture of those countries. Or a manual on things you should bring on your travels.

• Computer online store: You can write a manual on how to keep your computer free of viruses. Or a manual how you can upgrade a computer. The list is endless.

If the manual is of good quality then the incoming links will come and sometimes they will come fast!

If you can think of subject where you should make a list or a manual about, you could ask your website visitors. Most visitors will gladly give you some subjects where they need information on.