“101 Ways To Market Your Website” is the title of a book found at a cheap publisher’s outlet in town for about three quid and purchased out of interest.

So, we sat down with a cup of coffee and worked our way through the index, see what these people thought was useful, and if there was something new there.

Extraordinarily enough, in my past 10 years on the net, I’ve done EVERY SINGLE ONE of those!

EVERY single one. And some of them, I could have added another 12 chapters on top of what was in the book.

Question. If I actually really do know how to do that web thing so very thoroughly (and it appears that I actually really and practically do!), then why don’t I have 9 billion visitors per second?

The answer is simple.

EVERY ONE of these 101 ways TAKES IMMENSE INVESTMENT IN TIME - IF you’re going to do it right and get it to a point where it actually works well enough to really start generating that mysteriously elusive web traffic for your site.

Let’s just take a single one for example, the autoresponder, in all its glory.

Even if we leave out the time spent learning the software, soliciting ads, writing the content, if you really, REALLY did that thoroughly, with a number of multiple chained autoresponders with thousands or tens of thousands of subscribers on each one, the sign up pages, advertising the sign up pages, keeping the whole thing up to date and dealing with the correspondence this generates, the trouble shooting, unsubscriptions, and everything else, you would end up doing NOTHING ELSE ALL DAY - and have a full working week.

And that is just ONE item on a “101″ item list.

The same holds true for EVERYTHING.

To really build, use, police, update, enlarge and maintain a top class directory, a 40 hour working week by ONE SINGLE PERSON with their computer is taken up, just with that and ONLY that.

To run, police, advertise and expand a popular forum is yet the same again.

To produce an exciting, content rich, constantly up to date blog that brings in followers and sales, yup, it’s a full time task.

To produce, maintain, advertise and run a really good ezine does exactly the same again.

So does “article marketing” with its multiple submissions, updates, multiple directory listings, authors bios, and so forth.

And so does “newsgroup marketing” once again.

Want to try your hand at running a good affiliate programme?

How about keyword optimising each and every page of your website with content alignment, meta tags, robot instructions, and maintaining this with feedback on your listings in various search engines to keep in the top ten as the fashions change radically overnight?

Perhaps a multiple placement dedicated banner advertising campaign with feedback statistic adjustments?

Really get into Google adwords and maintain, track, fine tune and keep it perfectly up to date in response to your competitors and customers?

Same story, all over …

And so it goes on.

Here’s the deal.

All these things, I only did in order to support the business I’m actually SUPPOSED TO BE IN!

My 40 hour working week (well don’t make me laugh! but anyway, just for argument’s sake and to have a figure there) SHOULD theoretically be taken up by research and writing, as I’m a writer.

So what we have here is 101 ways to spend a full 40 hour week, plus your own job’s 40 hour week.

Shame we don’t live on Pluto, isn’t it. They have weeks that last centuries …

So what is ONE SINGLE PERSON trying to do web marketing supposed to do?

Well, and after ten years of beating myself up for not doing all those things “properly”, I think the following is of the essence.

No.1 is to understand that unless you have dedicated staff, there is no way on Earth you can do all of that yourself.

There simply isn’t enough time, even if we leave the steep learning curves and time spent trying to understand software and such quite out of it.

So what one has to do is to pick and choose from these 101 strategies the ones that are:

a) the easiest and fastest;

b) the ones that last the longest on autopilot;

c) the most natural to what you’re supposed to be doing in the first place (yeah that’s the original job/product/mission, remember that even still?)

If you like databases but abhor article writing, concentrate on building a good directory and forget about article submissions, for example.

We need to prune, prioritise and perfect only a very few of these 101 options, and stick to those.

That’s the only way to survive this.

It is to understand that you PHYSICALLY CANNOT do all that; that if you try, you can’t help but fail at everything (as then, NOTHING gets the attention it needs to actually bring results eventually!); and that you have to PICK AND CHOOSE which battles you’re going to fight.

Lastly, all that 101 traffic stuff has to be subjugated to the real reason we’re here, whatever that is, and must NEVER be allowed to get to a point where it is taking up more than 50% of your time.

So.

Go look at a list of these internet marketing devices.

Pick just those you are naturally attracted to, and just FORGET about all the rest.

Try and make those as good as you can, and build up your business to a point like that until you can hire staff and manpower to expand into some of the other traffic generating devices.

And in the meantime, take a deep breath, relax, and know that NO-ONE, not even someone with 8 tentacles instead of arms and who never sleeps, can actually do that myth and successfully implement “101 Ways To Advertise Your Website”.

Wisdom is a fine thing …

SFX

http://SilviaHartmann.com

Silvia Hartmann is the author of MindMillion and CEO of The StarFields Network. Take a GREAT course on wealth building and intelligence enhancing for FREE at http://StarFields.org/60.htm

You might think that deciding to refinance a mortgage requires
only a quick comparison of loan interest rates. Unfortunately,
that’s not really true. Refinancing is trickier than that!
Fortunately, three useful rules of thumb can often help you make
sense of refinancing opportunities.

Rule 1: Don’t Ignore Total Interest Costs

You really want to use refinancing as a way to reduce the total
interest cost you pay. While that sounds simple in principle, it
is sometimes difficult to do. The interest costs you pay are a
function of the interest rate, the loan balance, and the loan
term period.

When people refinance, they tend to focus solely on the loan
interest rate. But they often don’t pay as much attention to the
loan term or the loan balance.

When you use refinancing–even refinancing at a lower interest
rate–to increase your borrowing or to extend the time over
which you borrow, you often aren’t saving money.

Rule 2: Trade Expensive Money for Cheap Money

For refinancing to make economic sense, however, you do need to
swap higher interest rate debt for lower interest rate debt.
This calculation, however, is tricky. To make an
apples-to-apples comparison, you must look at the annual
percentage rate that will be charged on your new loan–this is
the best measure of the new loan’s interest rate cost–and then
compare this to the loan interest rate on your old loan.

You don’t want to compare interest rates on the two loans nor do
you want to compare annual percentage rates on the two loans.
Again, just to make this perfectly clear: You want to compare
the loan interest rate on the old loan to the annual percentage
rate on the new loan.

When the annual percentage rate on the new loan is lower than
the loan interest rate on the old loan, then you are truly
paying a lower interest rate.

Comparing annual percentage rates with loan interest rates seems
confusing at first. But note that you would pay only interest on
your old or current loan, so that’s all you need to look at in
terms of its costs. With a new loan, however, you would pay both
interest and any origination or closing cost fees. The annual
percentage rate wraps the interest rate charges and setup
charges, origination charges, and closing cost fees into one
interest rate-like number.

Rule 3: Don’t Lengthen the Repayment Period

Be careful that you don’t extend the length of time you borrow
by continually refinancing. For example, one common rule of
thumb states that every time interest rates drop by two
percentage points, you should refinance your mortgage. However,
there have been times in recent history when following this rule
would have had you refinancing your mortgage every few years.
This could mean that you would never get your mortgage paid off.
If you refinanced every few years, you would suddenly find
yourself still 30 years away from having your mortgage paid.

Many people believe that having few, if any, credit cards and not having any debt is good for their credit…and they’re all wrong!

Credit scores do not improve unless you have credit accounts with some debt accumulated, with all of the required monthly payments paid on time. While it is true that you may not want to pay interest on any debts you may have, it is far better for your overall credit to have some debt instead of no debt.

The best credit scores come from consumers with established credit accounts, with a small portion of the available credit line in use. Your credit report is updated monthly with payment information on these accounts. If you make all your required minimum monthly payments on time, your credit score will rise.

The shorter the amount of time you’ve had accounts open, the larger the balances are on open accounts and any late payments can combine to negatively impact your credit score. If your total debt-to-income ratio is more than one-third of your monthly income, you may not even qualify for a mortgage loan

Never having used any credit may result in a loan disqualification also, simply because there is no repayment information to base your creditworthiness on.

Your credit score will directly influence the availability of mortgage loans with acceptable rate. The closer your credit score slips toward subprime territory, the more interest and fees you’ll likely end up paying for your loan. The difference between a standard mortgage and a subprime mortgage can make the difference in hundreds of dollars a month tacked onto a mortgage payment.

How you use your credit today will determine the mortgage opportunities that are present tomorrow. Use your credit wisely and the sky’s the limit. Use it poorly and mortgage opportunities will pass you by.

© cashbuzz.com

John Campbell is the writer and editor of CashBuzz, A financial portal for the rest of us. Check out cashbuzz.com for the latest articles on money management and tips and tricks that can help improve your finances. This article may be reprinted on your Web site if the copyright, author information, and active link are included.

What do you mean, you don’t have a website for your small business? Now that the Internet age is well and truly upon us, small business owners who haven’t yet realised what a well-designed website could do for their business are getting harder and harder to find. If you’re one of them, though, read on to find out how starting your own website could help your small business grow.

A small business website widens your client base

And it doesn’t just increase it a little bit either - it increases it a lot! If your business currently gets most of its custom from pass-by trade, or from word of mouth, you could be amazed at the amount of new business your own website could bring you. When you get your website online, you’re no longer restricting yourself to your own local area: your small business website can be seen be people all over the world, and any one of them could become your next customer.

The internet has made world wide trade easier and more common than ever before. Unless your products are exceptionally large or heavy, it’s possible to ship them anywhere in the world relatively inexpensively, and thanks to online payment providers such as paypal and worldpay, you can accept payments from all over the world too. If you’re selling services it’s easier: you can communicate with your international clients by email, and send them your completed work the same way.

A small business website increases your marketing options.

Once you have your own small business website, a whole new world of marketing options will open up to you. Email campaigns, newsletters, pay per click advertising - all highly targeted methods of communicating with your potential clients. Not only is internet marketing relatively easy to do, it also tends to be cheaper than conventional marketing methods, which leaves you with more money to boost your small business in other ways.
Selling online with a small business website

Owning your own small business website also makes it possible to sell your goods and services online.

Adding an ecommerce solution to your website allows you to sell almost anything, and as shopping online becomes more and more popular, NOT providing online services could mean missing out on a large share of the market. Shopping online is popular with consumers because it’s easy: a few clicks of a mouse, and the product they’re looking for is delivered straight to their door. Why not make it easy for them to buy that product from you - through your small business website?

Amber McNaught is co-owner of Hot Igloo Productions Ltd. - the small business specialists. Hot Igloo offer a range of services to businesses, including website design, public relations, internet marketing, copywriting and more. Visit their website at: http://www.hotigloo.co.uk