How to Build Team Trust

Trust is the belief and confidence in the integrity, reliability and fairness of a person or organization.

Trust is an essential human value and is the grease that keeps teams running smoothly when conflict arises. It is difficult to acquire, and if abused, harder to salvage.

People become nervous and defensive with one another if any of the following occur:

-- Decisions are perceived to be unfair.
-- Behavior is unreliable.
-- Business strategies are unpredictable.
-- People fail to follow through on commitments.
-- People make excuses or lie to cover up mistakes.
-- Work stragegies and systems are unreliable.

People who were raised during the partial eclipse of the industrial age, the baby boomers and their parents, learned to do what they were told and to align with organizations they could trust to make payroll. They were taught to trust their leaders and if necessary lie for them.

For example, the secretary learned to roll off the tongue that the boss was not in, when he was. This little "white" lie was sanctioned if not ordered from the top down. And, similar matters of integrity occur even today, when little white lies serve to cover up mistakes.

Since the rise of the information age, organizations can no longer view their employees the same way as their physical, financial and inventory assets. These assets are owned. People are not. Therefore, the organization's personnel success or failure hinges on relationship quality and longevity of the relationships it forges with employees. And, long term relationships are based on trust.

Trust is so important to group relationships that people worry or become angry and discontented if trust is damaged. Or, they become numb and with the numbness come complacency, apathy and broken loyalty. Work slows down, profits shrink, and the talented, discontented worker moves on to greener pastures when the opportunity arises.

During a recession threats of job loss breed complacency. After a recession, leaving an organization to find another because of irreconcilable values is the mark of a good leader - a badge of honor.

In their article, The Surprising Economics of a People Business, consultants Felix Barber and Rainer Streck argue that trained and contributing employees drive the overall performance of a company. As such different systems and strategies require different performance measures and management practices. These practices involve trust.

As such, trust in self, coworkers and leaders are essential if not mandatory for a group to excel.

Trust also has a dynamic impact on group problem solving. For example, group problem solving tends to break down in low trust environments and becomes creative and productive in high trust environments. That is why it is so important for leaders to purge fear-based, top down practices from the team dynamic.

The rub comes in the shift between Industrial and Information era technologies. The first exposes the employee to narrowly defined tasks and expectations. There are dues to pay because tenured employees or a chain of command dynamic rules advancement and contribution.

The Information age dynamic, on the other hand, embraces emotionally intelligent leadership dynamics, the ability to system think, creatively problem solve, measure results and nurture group process. This is on the people side. On the work side, accomplishing quality work, refining processes and operating lean makes payroll.

A talented new hire with a solid skill set is hard to retain if a pecking order or tenure process gets in the way of learning and contribution. The work and people balance becomes a high wire act because job satisfaction requires balance between getting good work done and the psychological satisfaction of people doing the work.

In the Information age, requiring a new employee to wait his turn for advancement without providing training and a clearly defined horizontal job development path damages morale and is counter-productive.

Therefore, some examples of high trust environments are:

-- Leaders and team members trust one another and freely exchange information.

-- Leaders and team members respectfully express differences of opinion and discuss disappointments without fear of repercussion.

-- Leaders and team members freely explore ideas and share information.

-- Leaders and team members experience high levels of give-and-take, mutual support, respect, and confidence in one another's ability.

Training, mentoring and providing opportunity to serve are anchored in the organizational culture.

Some examples of low trust environments are:

-- Leaders encourage unhealthy competition and scarcity among members.

-- Leaders fear empowerment because of job security.

-- Leaders and team members sabotage or shun people they do not like in order to minipulate them.

-- Leaders and members falsify documents or lie to cover up mistakes.

-- All parties to conflict justify the thought; the end justifies the means.

In a nutshell, trust is very expensive if not impossible to buy in today's workforce and very difficult to salvage if spoiled. People know trust though actions, not words. What people say must line up with what they do for trust to be recognized. When words fail to match actions over time, organizations loose good people or cripple morale and lose dividends.

About the Author: Dianne Crampton is a team and leadership consultant. She founded the TIGERS team model which tracks and measures 6 collaborative team values that form the hub of a team culture

How To Generate Free Mlm Leads

How To Generate Free Mlm Leads
By: Ola and Shola Abitogun

Tools To Generate Free MLM Leads.

You are scanning this article now because you are searching for ways generate MLM leads at no cost or for a relatively cheap price. Well, you have come to the right page. I will be giving you a preview basically of a number of the tools that people use today to create free MLM leads. It comes down to just how much are you really willing to do to take your Network marketing business to a different level. Are you contented with spending money to some people to give you list of people who're actually job seekers or you are willing to put a little bit of work and generate fresh, targeted and free MLM Leads. Underneath are some tools that we use to generate free MLM leads.

Facebook;

I wrote more about using Facebook to generate free MLM leads and also the different methods that you could use. You possibly can check that out. The bottom line is that Facebook is free the last time I checked. Another thing you should know right now is you'll want to have a huge presence on the social network. Facebook is utterly the very best tool out there now to connect with prospects. The issue however is the fact that we spend time pitching business to the people on Facebook. This is not attractive and will yield no result. If this is done efficiently as I preached within the Facebook article, you may be generating 10-30 free MLM leads everyday on Facebook. That is certainly FREE MLM leads.

Twitter:

OK, this should be a no-brainer. If you have guys like President Obama, as well as old Senator McCain on twitter, what exactly are you still waiting for? As of the time that i am writing this, I have 7000 followers on twitter all within just two months. If this is well done, you can easily generate 20 free MLM leads daily from twitter. Again, this really is another tool for connecting with normal folks. The underlining principle here is that individuals will do business together with you simply because they trust you. With twitter (just like Facebook), you can offer value and trainings to the people on twitter. When they are familiar with you, they are going to opt by themselves to do business with you as oppose to you begging them to watch a presentation.

Linkedin

This isn't a very popular methods, but it's not withstanding very effective in generating free MLM leads. On Linkedin, you will find professionals who're probably more open to act immediately. The way you will approach someone on Facebook is definitely not the same way that you are going to approach a professional on Linkedin. There's more to the methods on Linkedin that i covered into specifics on another post. Just understand that it's supposed to be about you connecting together and not pitching your enterprise to them.

Youtube

Youtube is among the most popular website that people visit around the globe. I'm referring to potential billions of folks that could possibly be possibly viewing what you have to say. This is among the most effective way to generate free MLM leads because the people watching your contents already are acquainted with your face, how you talk, as well as your accent (like mine) if any. It is free because it is free to create youtube account. However , you dont want to be on there talking 100% about your legitimate home business. People don't care because they don't know you. Offer them value. These are what we call your COLD MARKET. Your ultimate goal would be to turn them into your WARM MARKET. Once they have an understanding of you, they'll, on their own, opt to do business with you. This is what the most notable earners in Multilevel marketing know but average folks don't want to get it.

Should you incorporate these tools, you'll never have to pay just one dime ever anymore for home business opportunity seekers. The best part of these methods as mentioned earlier is that they are very targeted toward Network marketing business professionals. These MLM leads are fresh unlike the one you bought online which has also been sold to 10 other people contrary to what they are proclaiming. 100% of the time, these people are the one that are opting to work with you. That automatically improves your position and put you in the position of authority as oppose to when you are normally the one doing the begging.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Shola Abitogun is the co-founders of MLMbrothers International along with his brother Ola Abitogun. For more on generating the Free MLM leads, visit http://mlmbrothers.com/mlm-business/mlm-leads/generate-free-mlm-leads/

Read more: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/How-To-Generate-Free-Mlm-Leads/1031520#ixzz0pSbqI2L6 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

The New Kid in Town": MSN AdCenter

The New Kid in Town": MSN AdCenter
By Merle http://MCPromotionsPress.com

If you use Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly known as Overture) for your pay per click advertising, you'll want to "listen up". There's a new competitor on the scene "MSN Ad Center". Microsoft's pay per click program is called "MSN Keywords" which is the first of several advertising options they have planned.

At the time of this writing the only way to participate in this "pilot program" is by invitation only. Rumor has it they should be going public with the launch towards the middle of this year. If you'd like to be considered for participation you can sign up at ... http://advertising.msn.com/searchadv/PilotForm.asp

If you're already a client you can log into your account at http://adcenter.msn.com

The program, which is very similar to Google Adwords allows you to bid on keywords associated with your online business and your ads will be displayed on MSN's search results pages reaching a potential audience of 49 million people every month. Once approved for the program you'll need to create your own "ad center" account. The sign up fee of $5.00 will be charged to your credit card at that time.

The next step is to select the keywords you want your ads to appear for and how much you want to bid for each. The minimum bid is five cents. You're only charged for actual clicks on your ads not for their display. There is no minimum monthly budget. You'll also find a keyword research tool under the research tab to brainstorm new keywords or check on keyword performance.

If you already use "Google Adwords" or "Yahoo Search Marketing" you can easily import your existing ads and keyword lists. If you need assistance you can use what's called "Quick Launch" where a marketing analyst will assist you with your account setup. During beta there is no charge for this assistance.

One of the nicest feature of MSN's pay per click program is the "advanced targeting". You can select the target markets you want to reach (male, female, by age). You also can select locations, specific countries/regions, even select cities where you want your ads to appear. How about choosing the days of the week you want your ads to run, right down to the time? Yes, you can do it all right here. This is possible due to MSN's use of "audience data" to better target your ads to the audience who would be most interested in your offer. They call this "Audience Intelligence" which allows you to make smarter decisions when it comes to your online marketing campaigns.

You can also track conversions with their free conversion tracking.

Setting up your text ads is simple following their guidelines. You have four lines to work with:

Title Line (25 characters max, incl. spaces) 2nd & 3rd Line (70 characters max, incl. spaces) 4th Line (this is for your url, 35 characters) For more specific style guidelines see http://tinyurl.com/cevu4.

For content guidelines
see http://tinyurl.com/7ue53

You'll find a "reports tab" in the ad center so you can keep an eye on how well your campaigns are doing. You can track click through rates, impressions, and more.

If you're already using pay per click marketing in your online marketing efforts, you might want to take MSN for a spin. With their advanced targeting you'll be given the ability to hit your target market with more precision, and expand your reach and online exposure.

For more information visit the learning center http://tinyurl.com/b786r or see the AdCenter Blog for members at http://blogs.msdn.com/adcenter/

How to Build Valuable Backlinks

How to Build Valuable Backlinks

By Debbie A. Everson (c) 2010

Search engine optimization consists mainly of on page activity and off page optimization. Building backlinks is a part of off page optimization strategy. High quality backlinks have the potential to increase a websites ranking in the SERPs.

Backlinks are considered valuable when they:

a. are do follow
b. contain the appropriate anchor text,
c. are deep linked to the relevant inner pages,
d. are linked from high PR niche websites
5 Tips for Building Valuable Backlinks:

1. Perform A Competitive Intelligence Analysis

Competitive intelligence analysis allows you to scrutinize the competitors' backlinks and their link profiles. Run a Google search for your target keyword and list the top 20 competitors. Capitalize on the Yahoo! Search Explorer tool to determine the backlinks for each of the top competing websites. Use an Excel spreadsheet to make a list of all the backlinks providing websites. The next step is to shortlist the do follow websites from the list. Arrange them in the descending order of their PR. At the end of this procedure, you will have a list of highly valuable do follow websites to link from.

2. Submit URLs to Search Directories

Search directories are of two types: general and niche directories. Backlinks from niche directories are normally considered more valuable than the backlinks from general directories. Most of the search directories take months to process your linking request. There are some directories which link back within a few days. Websites which build a high number of backlinks in a few days are looked upon suspiciously by Google. The best way to build backlinks is over a period of time to avoid getting tagged as a link spammer. Submitting a website's URL to directories is a time consuming task but provides great results at the end.

3. Submit Articles to Article Directories

Submitting articles to article directories is a very popular approach to link building. Most of the article directories allow you to include a link in the article. You can also add a link to the author description of the article with appropriate anchor text. Article directories are known to rank well in the search engine ranking pages. An added benefit of submitting to article directories is the traffic it drives to your website. There are a large number of high quality article directories which accept free article submission. Simply sign up, verify your account and start submitting articles.

4. Post in Forums

Forums initially served as a means of conversing and solving queries. Today forums are also used to obtain valuable backlinks to your website. A majority of forums allow a signature link at the bottom of every post. This signature link is a do-follow link. You can select the desired anchor text and link to any important inner page of your website. There are a few forums which allow you to enter more than one signature link. Just remember to participate in the conversation, ask questions and answer those of others.

5. Create Link Bait

Link bait involves creating compelling content on the website which makes others link to it. You should write frequently and consistently to develop a following. Keep tab on the latest happenings and news in your niche; be among the first few to break the news online. To create that perfect link bait, your articles should contain news, updates, a controversial topic or even some great resources. Keep the information quotient of your articles high and watch the link baits pouring in.

If you want other websites and blogs to link to you, double check who you are linking too. Don't be in a rush to get backlinks. A handful of good quality and authoritative backlinks are worth more than a hundred low quality, low PR backlinks.

About The Author
Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Learn about search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media, and email marketing. Read my SEO Blog at blog.searchmar.com for hints and tips. Follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to one of our SEO Consultants. Visit www.searchmar.com .

Twitter: Followers, Niches, and Myths

Twitter: Followers, Niches, and Myths

Posted: 23 May 2010 10:00 PM PDT

Twitter has certainly emerged as one of the most popular social networking/blogging platforms of the past few years. There are various reasons why Twitter has become so wildly popular. It is a simple concept where brief messages can be sent to loyal followers. This is why Twitter is so helpful to small businesses. It can aid in promoting a business in the most cost effective manner. Really, this is one of the very best systems for promoting updates, info, and deals to the followers of the Twitter account.

The one problem here is that most entrepreneurs look towards quantity as opposed to quality in their followers. This can prove to be a huge mistake since you never want to sacrifice quality when looking to amass Twitter followers.

How do people make such a mistake? Well, they look at volume as being the secret to their success. The problem here is that the process is not going to be a very successful one. Rather, it can prove to be disastrous more than anything else because your business ends up promoting itself to those that are really not interested in the products or services you are offering.

Yes, some people will sign on to be followers of your Twitter account with no real interest in being customers. That is why you need to develop a strong niche following as opposed to a large following.

The bottom line here is you do NOT want a large list of followers. You want an EFFECTIVE list of followers.

Some may consider this notion to go against the grain in which a Twitter account should be approached. After all, Twitter is wildly popular so why not follow the trends? The average Twitter account has changed dramatically since July. The number of followers the average account maintains has jumped from 70 to 300. This has led many accounts to increase their number of postings. In July, the number was in the range of 119. Today, it has jumped significantly to 420.

But, is there a great deal of benefit from such increases? In all honesty, if the followers are not going to purchase, the numbers do not really mean much. That means all those increases in updates have less value as well. Again, you want your efforts to be effective. Promoting volume in your approach is not the way to achieve any true level of success.

One problem with a large number of followers is that your tweets need to be adjusted to handle larger volumes. That means your tweets need to be clearly understood by all. As such, you need to promote a generalized approach to the tweets. This is not always the best method because you are not providing detailed and specific information in the tweets. This means those that are serious potential customers may lose interest in the tweets or cease taking them seriously. This is not a good thing if you are seriously trying to sell a product or service.

It becomes a full time job to sort and respond to the real people who are interested in you. Twittering without engagement of your audience defeats the entire process of marketing. I believe many people are using twitter as “lets throw it out there and see what sticks”. I can tell you from testing that this approach does not work. No wonder people are leaving twitter in droves.

This leads to a more potentially serious side effect. If more members of Twitter venture towards promoting generic, uninteresting, and uninspiring tweets so as to boost the volume of people reading, the health of the social network site will not stay strong for long.

Basically, why would anyone would want to follow Twitter when the tweets decline in value? This would certainly not be a positive in terms of the ability for a small business to procure new customers that are vital to the health of the business.

Again, exploring options for expanding a business’ success should center on niche marketing. This approach needs to be taken with Twitter or else the value of Twitter will decline. Based on what we are seeing, the decline will be difficult to avoid in the future based on current actions.

Does this mean that Twitter is decidedly lacking in value for those seeking to utilize what it has to offer? No, no one is making such a statement as it would be a decidedly inaccurate one.

Twitter, in fact, has taken steps to promote niche marketing. This is evident in the ability to devise “Twitter lists.” Twitter lists allow you to take certain members of your massive group of followers and put them in a particular category. You can then promote your tweets to individual members of these various lists. So, you can present wide, generic tweets as well as individualized tweets to those that may be considered more serious potential customers.

For example, you can create a group of people that have already made purchases in the past. Then, you would be free to issue tweets directly to such individuals as you wish. This would be an effective form of niche marketing that would be far more beneficial than putting forth perpetually generalized tweets. One of the other problems with having 1,000’s of non-niched followers is seeing through the noise of twitter.

As such, it is best to look towards growing these individual lists in order to expand the potential to niche market. Yet, many will seek to put forth the exact opposite goal. They will look towards greatly expanding their number of followers into the thousands while never stopping to examine whether or not such a massive list truly boosts their success potential. Such a strategy is a flawed one that will not lead to the empirical success that is sought.

And, if you are not looking to succeed with your business, then why even bother being in business? Twitter has tremendous value and it delivers great benefit to those looking to expand their small business’ promotional strategies in a cost effective manner.

In conclusion, try not to become hung up on the notion of greatly expanding your followers’ list. Seek to promote effective niche marketing strategies instead. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Duncan Wierman is an Ex Software company CEO turned Real Estate Investor and Marketer. Discover how you can use creative online marketing methods to do more deals online. For more details setting up an automated internet marketing system, please visit Duncan Wierman’s website and get is free 14 day e-course. http://www.DuncanWierman.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Twitter: Followers, Niches, and Myths

Do Not Make These 10 Common SEO Mistakes

Do Not Make These 10 Common SEO Mistakes

The time has come to list the top 10 SEO mistakes committed by website owners worldwide.

If you are not too happy about your website’s rankings on the search engines, then look through this list and make sure that the website is not committing any of these mistakes.

I’ve decided to divide this article into 2 sections: on page SEO and off page SEO mistakes. As you read through this article, you will realise that the mistakes covered here are all based on my previous articles about SEO.

On Page SEO Mistakes

This section refers to SEO mistakes made on your actual website.

1. Not Targeting 1 Keyword Per Page

This is the most important facet of on page SEO yet so many people are either unaware of its importance or forget to do it. It’s heaps easier to target a single keyword per page than to target 10 keywords per page. At the very maximum, you can target 2 keywords but you should try to keep it to just one. Focusing your efforts on 1 keyword per page will get greater results quicker. I can guarantee it.

2. No Keyword In URL

The URL of each page should have the keyword you are targeting for that page. If it doesn’t, then it’s just going to be harder for you to get that page ranking for that target keyword. Fix up your URL if you have to because this is crucial to SEO success.

3. No Keyword In Title Tag

I cannot count the number of pages I’ve been webpages not have their target keyword in the title tag. Just in case you’re not aware, the title tag is what appears at the top of your browser when you’re on a webpage. This is the one mistake I see the most because it is so obvious when I visit a webpage. It’s amazing how many home pages of websites have the word “Home” in their title tags. You MUST have the target keyword in your title tag because it will make a huge difference to your SEO efforts. This is certainly one of the top 10 SEO mistakes out there today.

4. Bad Use Of Meta Description And Meta Keywords

The most common mistake regarding meta description is people not using it at all. Just in case you weren’t aware, the meta description is a short description which is used to describe your website in search engine result listings. You should use it to encourage people to visit your website when they find you on the search engines. It’s also doesn’t hurt to have your target keyword there.

Regarding meta keywords, the most common mistake people commit is putting too many keywords there. You should limit yourself to a maximum of 5 to 8 keywords because putting more will only get you punished by the search engines for keyword spamming.

5. Bad Keyword Density

Unfortunately, many people are still committing this grave SEO mistake. Some are mentioning their target keyword as much as possible on their webpage to try and get it to rank highly. It used to work in the early days on the Web when engines were not intelligent but these days it can only guarantee your websites getting punished or even banned.

On the other hand, there are also people who do not use their keyword enough on their webpages. This is equally bad because it means that the search engines have no idea as to what keyword your webpage is trying to rank highly for.

When it comes to keyword density, your goal should be 3% which is not too much and not too little for good SEO results.

Off Page SEO Mistakes

This section refers to SEO mistakes made outside your website, but which hamper your website’s ability to rank highly on the search engines.

6. Bad Keyword Research

Keyword research is the basis for SEO success. If you target keywords with a high level of competition, then your ability to rank highly and get traffic will be diminished in the short term. On the other hand, you should not simply target keywords because of low competition because there may not be enough people searching for that keyword. It’s all about finding a balance between the number of searches and the number of websites competing for that keyword. Using tools such as Google Keyword Tool can help you achieve that objective.

7. No Keyword In Anchor Text

Off page SEO is all about building backlinks aka links back to your website. Nevertheless, while doing that, most people forget to put their keywords in the anchor text of the backlink. For example, if “computer repairs” was the primary keyword of your website, then you want to be sure that computer repairs is in the anchor text, just like in the following:

“Visit the best computer repairs service in town.”

Please note that the above is just an example.

This must be one of the most simple top 10 SEO mistakes committed today.

8. No Anchor Text Variety

While it’s great to use your target keyword in the anchor text of your backlinks, you must also mix and match with other keywords. In other words, if you use the same keywords in the anchor text of 100 links, then the search engines will regard this as suspicious and will punish your website. For this reason, you should find about 5 other related keywords and use them in your anchor text too. The greater the variety, the better your SEO results will be.

9. No Link Source Variety

There are plenty of ways to get backlinks, however, one of the top 10 SEO mistakes committed by people too often is by using only a minimal amount of link sources. For example, some people simply use article marketing to get their backlinks. Others just use social media. You need to be using a large range of sources to get your backlinks. The reason why this is the case is that the more sources you utilise, the more natural the backlinks will appears to the search engines, and the higher it will rank.

10. No Natural Build Up Of Links

Building on the previous mistake, you have to make sure that the amount of backlinks your website gets takes place in a natural, human-like manner. For instance, getting 300 links in just a single week will certainly grab the attention of the search engines and as a result, they will punish your website accordingly. However, if you get 300 links over the course of a month, then that will appear to be more natural and they will more than likely than not reward you.

Fix Them And Then Avoid Them

I suggest that you go through all of your websites and see whether they are committing the SEO mistakes covered in this post. After correcting them, it’s all about avoiding these common SEO mistakes so that your website get the rankings and traffic they thoroughly deserve.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Sejas – If you are looking for an SEO consulting service based in Sydney which can guarantee results for your website, don’t forget to register for your free consultation.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

7 Keys To Business Networking Growth

7 Keys To Business Networking Growth

Networking is not going away. No matter how high-tech, plugged in, or globalized the world becomes, networking will be around forever. You need networking, and you need it to work for you.

But as consumers, clients, customers, and executives all realize the power and usefulness of networking you are faced with the difficulty of discriminating how, when, why, and how much networking you should be doing.

For example, if you joined every networking web site there was, you could make a full time job of just filling out web forms. Or, if you attended every networking function in your industry, you would do nothing but eat, drink, and mingle.

So, what are you going to do. This article attempts to lay out seven keys to business networking growth.

1. Become the go-to guy for a networking question. As you begin to network, your circle of acquaintances grows. Your rolodex of numbers increases. And you start running out of room to put business cards. In time, you will build a reputation as a pretty good networker.

Now and then someone may come up to you and say, "Hey, do you happen to know a good franchise consultant?" You dig in your drawer, whip out a business card and say, "Give him a call. I met him last March. Nice guy." Bingo. You've scored a point. You've made a connection.

And you've won some trust. Eventually, a few more people will come up to you and say, "Hey, I heard that you may know a good marketing firm..." And so it has begun. By and by, you will receive a certain degree of recognition as someone who is very well connected, knows a lot of people, and can point people in the right direction. But networking is a snowballing adventure.

The more people you know, the more people you can get to know. The more people that come to you with networking questions, the more people you can find out about and get to know. Make it your goal to become the networking guru in your space.

2. Seek opportunities to help others. Helping people is at the core of networking. A networking attempt is so much more than a handshake and an exchange of a name card. It is so much more than accepting a connection on LinkedIn.

The value of your network is not measured by the amount of names that you know, but by the amount of help you can provide. As you survey the networking landscape, don't look at is as a host of names to know. Look at is as a host of people to help. After all, the only truly valuable networking will be from people whom you know personally and whom you have helped.

Once you help people, especially in a sacrificial or altruistic way, you've won their trust. They have a degree of confidence in you. That confidence will translate into them recommending you. That is exactly what you want. That is the way to grow your network, and that is a crucial key to business networking growth.

3. Seek opportunities for others to help you. But it works both ways. Not only should you be helping others, but others can be helping you. If you need help, ask for it.

Gaining help from others creates a human connection that can't be gained any other way. Besides, you get to see the skills of another from a unique angle. You get to see how the person works. You get to experience their product.

And you get to establish a mutual relationship of trust. That goes miles in the networking world. People willl remember those whom they help, and it is the perfect way to build a strong, lasting network.

4. Be everywhere often. Though it sounds daunting, it is possible to carve out a significant presence for yourself. The key word here is "strategic." As I mentioned, it is an incredible waste of time to join every networking site out there.

Though you will receive a plethora of invitations, be selective. Join only the ones that will best accomplish your purposes. It should be standard, however, to at least have a presence on LinkedIn, the current networking site leader.

Other industry-specific websites should be consulted as well. In addition, attend several strategic functions as often as you can. Again, too much is too much, but make it your practice to be at the important ones as often as possible.

5. Know people well. When you meet people, remember their names and some specifics about them. Don't be ashamed to write names down. You need to remember them. Carry around a pen and pad of paper, and jot down notes.

Not just for names, but facts, too. When you pick up the phone to call that potential customer, it will go a long way to say, "By the way, how's your mother-in-law? I remember you mentioned she had surgery last week."

6. Host something. Be a networking leader and go ahead and host something. It can be as simple as a backyard barbecue for all the CFOs in your town. Or it can be as big as a golf outing for all the engineering firms.

Either way, you can quickly become a networking mogul, just by organizing events. After all, once the event is over, you have a list of everyone who signed up--complete with numbers and all.

7. Finally, make it fun. Networking can be a fulfilling hobby. After all, you're interacting with people. People can be a lot of fun. Face the challenge of being a networking guru, but make it an enjoyable and refreshing hobby.

About the AuthorAdam Price is a master at the art of online networking and internet marketing in business. He challenges business owners to grow their offline business by harnessing the power of the internet. He's also the co-founder of SynergyBizNet, find out more at: www.Synergy-Biz-Net.com

Don't Let Social Media Marketing Work Against You

Don't Let Social Media Marketing Work Against You

By Chris Crum - Mon, 01/28/2008 - 4:30pm.

Steps you can take for an effective campaign

Social media marketing can be a great boost to your business, but just the same it can be a nail in your coffin. If you are going to travel down its path, you're going to have to put some time and effort into it.

If you are serious about earning business from the social networks, there are several factors that need to be taken into consideration.

Consistency

One of the most important aspects of social media marketing is staying consistent among social networks.

"Branding is important when it comes to social media marketing. If you are trying to use social media sites for exposure and traffic not only is it important to brand your domain name, but it is also important to brand your user name by keeping it consistent throughout all social sites", says popular marketing consultant Neil Patel.

Many social media users use several sites like MySpace, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, etc. Staying consistent will burn your brand into their memories. This brings me to the next point.

Quantity

There are quite a few social sites out there. It seems like more every day. It is a good idea to have a presence on as many of these as possible, but don't overwhelm yourself. Be sure to keep up with all of the ones you have an account with.

If necessary, assign one or more of your employees to keep up with each account on a daily basis. You don't want to leave untouched pages out there, because potential customers may come across them and you may appear that you don't care about their demographic or that you are lazy. You never want your brand to be reflected in a negative light. Reputation

Just as you wouldn't want untouched pages out there, you wouldn't want to have the "wrong crowd" in your network of friends. This can also reflect poorly on your brand. I have discussed this in a previous article.

Participation

Not only do you want to make sure your pages are kept up, you need to actually get involved in the community, otherwise you're just going to come off as an advertisement.

"Users in these communities are looking for participation and contribution," says SiteLogic founder Matt Bailey. "And no – advertising your product and dropping links are not considered participation. Contribution is in the form of thoughts, opinions, and discussion."

This will show potential customers that you are more than just a business. You are a human being that can relate to them. Basically, you are building trust for your brand.

As social networks continue to gain popularity, the potential for new business is seemingly endless. Just go about it properly to ensure that it works for you rather than against you.

My Favorite Networking Sites

Twitter
Linkedin
Facebook
MySpace
Ecademy
Squidoo Lens # 1
Squidoo Lens # 2
My Wordpress Blog
My Forum
RY Forum
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Nofollow vs Dofollow Backlinks

A substantial part of promoting any website involves building backlinks.

Backlinks

Quality backlinks come from websites with a significant presence (i.e. page rank) and/or have highly sought authoritative content. These links are very benificial to your site's Internet presence but are difficult, not impossible to obtain. Backlinks from sites with unrelated content, purchased links and even spammy links such as those from link farms, FFAs and forum signature links add little value and could have a negative effect on your search engine rankings.

Nofollow

Dofollow

Question:

Answer:

DoFollow: Increase Your Backlinks with DoFollow Sites All Backlinks are Not Created Equal

Today I want to discuss backlinks. They come in many shapes and sizes in terms of value to your website. First lets define just what a backlink is.

What is a backlink? - A backlink or inbound link is a link on another site that leads to your own, and it is important to garner a large number of backlinks that are reputably obtained for several reasons. First, in SEO or search engine optimization, part of the algorithm for ranking your page on search engines is determined by the quantity and quality of backlinks to your site, providing they occur naturally and you have not purchased them. Second, backlinks are how you get known on the Internet. If lots of other sites provide a link to yours, a natural increase in traffic to your web pages occurs.

What is a keyword? - A keyword is a word or phrase that describes the main concepts of a topic. Before you start searching it is a good idea to brainstorm synonyms and combinations of terms. This will increase your chances of finding information on a topic. For example, if your topic was capital punishment, other keywords might include death penalty, death sentence, execution, etc..

It is important to understand that search engines work with keywords, so rather than just listing your URL as a backlink, it is far better to list your main keyword and then hyperlink that keyword to your site.

In simple terms, say you go to http://www.google.com/ and you see a single search box in the middle of the page. This is where almost everybody starts to search for an item. Trying to guess what somebody will type into that search box is called keyword research and is another subject for later. For the sake of discussion, lets say your website is http://www.widget.com. If somebody types "widget" into the search box, the search engine might send them to your website.

Say the main product you offer at http://www.widget.com is "free marketing advice". The term "free marketing advice" is a highly searched term that is often searched for by everyday searchers. A potential customer is more likely to search for "free marketing advice" than for "widget" so "free marketing advice" would be the best of the two choices.

When creating backlinks at other sites that point to your site, it is important to place your product keywords there and hyperlink those keywords to your site. By doing so, you are making it easy for the search engine to connect a client seeking "free marketing advice" with your website.

Don Jeffre
Skype: revenue4u
501-796-2525
Importance of Original Blogfather Content

Are you posting fresh content to your Blogfather Blog daily?

I know it is tempting to take shortcuts and copy/paste existing content that can be found on the Net. Today I want to help you see why it is so important to keep your posts original. Here are Google's guidelines. Please read and digest them carefully as your success or failure with marketing could hinge in the balance.

Affiliate programs

Our Webmaster Guidelines advise you to create websites with original content that adds value for users. This is particularly important for sites that participate in affiliate programs. Typically, affiliate websites feature product descriptions that appear on sites across that affiliate network. As a result, sites featuring mainly content from affiliate networks can suffer in Google's search rankings, because they do not have unique content that differentiates them from other sites on the web.

Google believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users, especially if they are part of a program that distributes its content to several hundred affiliates. Because a search result could return multiple sites, all with the same content, they create a frustrating user experience.

If you participate in an affiliate program, there are a number of steps you can take to help your site stand out and to help improve your rankings.

Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site.

When selecting an affiliate program, choose a product category appropriate for your intended audience. The more targeted the affiliate program is to your site's content, the more value it will add and the more likely you will be to rank better in Google's search results and make money from the program. For example, a well-maintained site about hiking in the Alps could consider an affiliate partnership with a supplier who sells hiking books rather than office supplies.

Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.

Keep your content updated and relevant. Fresh, on-topic information increases the likelihood that your content will be crawled by Googlebot and clicked on by users.

Pure affiliate sites consisting of content that appears in many other places on the web is unlikely to perform well in Google search results and can cause your site to be negatively perceived by search engines.

Unique, relevant content provides value to users and distinguishes your site from other affiliates, making it more likely to rank well in Google search result pages.

There you have it straight from the largest search engine itself. Marketers often remark that "Content is King". understand that it is far better to post an original entry once a week than to post duplicate content daily.

Don Jeffre
Platinum Control Panel Owner
1-501-796-2525
Skype: revenue4u
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Many routinely submit websites to the search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo. This is an essential to getting a site listed so it will appear in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). These submissions give the search engines a steady flow of leads to use for whatever purpose they choose.

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Inetekk has been building lead and marketing systems on the Internet since 1998. Inetekk and Veretekk were created by Thomas Prendergast and Mike Darling. With a combined expertise that started when the Internet was born in 1991, these guys represent over 200,000 hours of Internet and computer technology and have set the standard for Internet marketing.

Developers of the first and only double opt-in, verified and 3rd party verifiable email systems; Inetekk forged the only secure privacy based email system on the Internet. Inventors of the first online application, first self replicating website and first self replicating PDF e-books, this company have been destined to empower the little guy from its very inception. You have everything to gain by joining the affiliate program for free.

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Email Leads Generation

You constantly hear that the money is in the list and nobody helps you build it better than  Veremail system. Using verification technology, Veretekk keeps you safe and secure so you can focus your energies on marketing your business. It is the one stop solution for internet marketers allowing you to leverage yourself in a way that no other online system does. From first contact to ongoing permission marketing, the Veretekk system seamlessly integrates your online marketing efforts, saving and maximizing your time.

If you are working a multi level marketing program, one of the big concerns is often whether you will receive spam complaints. Many ISPs will discontinue a customer's internet service if spam allegations are found to have merit. This can be a real business killer if you happen to live where all internet service is obtained from a single provider.  Your Internet based business could be destroyed overnight under these circumstances. Having a successful home based business depends on uninterrupted Internet service. Veremail service with its built in safeguards is the answer.

A good, reliable Auto-Responder and Email system are essential requirements for Internet Marketing. You must have a some way to contact the Visitors and Prospects that come to Your Web Site, Or, respond to Your Classified Ad , FFA post, or 'squeeze page'.

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