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In business, the best way of making money is to find an opportunity in the market doing what others won’t do or are not prepared to do.

In the last 10 years a big business boom story in Scotland has been the hand car washes where they clean your car in a conveyor belt system. They tend to have 3 or bays and each bay can hold 3 or 4 cars. I go to the one in Dundee that opened 3 years ago.

One guy will soap your car another guy will use a large sponge to scrub the soap into the ingrained dirt and finally somebody else spray it all off. Much better than an automated car wash which might scratch your car? After you have had your car washed, why not go to the interior cleaning bays where they hand clean the inside whilst you wait in the waiting area sipping tea and catching up on the daily news.

Once you have an idea, focus on it. Don’t let other people distract you and move you of tangent. You will find out that what was just a glimmer of your imagination, starts to grow arms and legs and over time becomes a lot more solid.

After all – any idea worth its salt has to be given three years at least before you see the full benefits!

If you must copy a great new business idea then make sure that you do it better, much better! Think – don’t react to a simple idea and just copy it. Try and improve on it by a wide margin otherwise you will have zero USP (unique selling point). Spend quality time evaluating how you could improve on it. This is where some good intelligent friends really come in handy.

If you are still struggling for ideas, why not look at a franchise opportunity. Don’t look at the old established franchises but instead check out the new ones that are emerging. Why do I say this? If you get in at the ground floor of an opportunity then it becomes easier to expand into other territories near you. If you go for the more established brands then territories are harder to come by. You can also pick up newer franchises for a lot lower initial outlay then an established brand.

Make sure you do your homework first, and speak to existing franchisees about how they are faring with their business. It is also worthwhile doing a check on the company selling the franchise. It is very important that you back a financially stable company.

Economically – this is the best time to become an entrepreneur. The economic outlook is generally rosy, inflation is low and banks are lending money at historically low rates. It has never been a better time to look for a serious business opportunity.

After all is said and done and you have chosen the business opportunity that you are going to go with, then roll up your sleeves, do not let anybody distract you and prepare for some hard work.

A definition and examination of the notion of the mini-net and how Internet gurus recommend it like Michael Campbell as a way of improving your SEO.

Mini-net is just a buzz word coined by SEO guru Michael Campbell (who wrote a book called The Revenge of the Mininet) that means dynamic linking. Dynamic linking is a skill that is used by affiliate marketers to improve their search engine optimization and often cuts the actual time they spend at the computer by fifty percent.

In essence, creating a mini-net is about creating a network of tinier sites. These sites are linked together to create a mininet. The theory is that in terms of SEO the search engines find these smaller, dynamically linked sites to be more attractive then one large sprawling site. In a way you are creating an empire of links, even if those links are only linking back to your own sites. However the search engine spiders are supposed to be intrigued by these intricate online webs.

Campbell claims that this approach helps build your credibility with both the search engines and customers, makes your pages easier to search and allows you to efficiently employ keywords so that you attract customers as opposed to surfers to your site. It also teaches you how to tease individuals into clicking on your links and cloak your source code to prevent affiliate theft.

However adopting this type of SEO strategy is not for everybody and it is definitely not for newbies. First of all you have to be savvy about creating web pages, using an HTML editor and FTP software. You of course, have to be actively enrolled in an affiliate program and know how to paste affiliate traffic codes into your web site pages. This is not rocket science but being even just a little bit experienced at being a web master or web mistress helps with this. It is probably helpful to read up a bit on this topic before deploying it as an SEO strategy as it only takes one or two small flaws to cause the search engines to ignore your site.

Improved search engine rank is attainable through good search engine optimization, part of which is the maximizing of your Google Page Rank through intelligent linking with other web pages. In this first part of 2 on the subject of Google Page Rank, we will look at the argument for attaining high listings through a linking strategy.

Google Page Rank is a buzz term at the moment since many believe it to be more important

Gift giving is no longer just for personal reasons. Now businesses get ahead by leaps and bounds when they expand their business using corporate gift services. And here are some popular ways they add gifts to their biz mix.

1) Seasonal Gifts – Many companies plan promotions around seasons like holiday periods. These are a great time for corporate gift services. If you would really like to stand out from all the other holiday season gifts your customers and clients will receive, send your gifts just ahead of the curve. Utilize Thanksgiving or the first of the year to send out your holiday gift. For example your local gift consultant/designer can help you plan well in advance with branded pen and pencil sets to give as gifts to employees for the holidays, promotional coupons to give away or insert inside holiday newsletters and greeting cards as gifts for past customers, encouraging return shopping trips and purchases throughout the rest of the year.

2) Event Gifts – Trade shows, workshops, seminars and other important business events are excellent places to boost business with corporate gift services. Give gifts as fundraisers, awards and door prizes at your events and make sure all marketing, sales and other promotional materials are well branded so that shoppers can reach out and find you.

3) Thank You Gifts – Gifts for customer appreciation, employee recognition and appreciation are popular too among corporate gift services. To help stream line and make your gift giving effective, choose gifts in all budget ranges for people of all ages: travel kits, first aid kits, snack packs, gift baskets with healthy snacks, wine and cheese trays, engraved ornaments or pens, popular best-sellers from the business section of your local bookstore or Amazon(dot)com.

4) Themed or Custom Gifts – Be sure to consider this category. Having a theme in mind can allow your gift consultant to create a basic foundation of gifts and then customize them as you see fit.

Its pretty well documented that the most cost effective way to generate more sales on your website is to convert more of your visitors into buyers. After all, you’ve done most of the hard work (and probably spent a great deal of money) getting them there in the first place.

Here are our Top Tips that we’ve learned over the years at http://www.totsplanet.co.uk to increase conversion rates (in no particular order):

1. Homepage – Make an impression; its your shop window

You’ve only got one chance and a matter of seconds to draw your visitor in; so get it right!

Let’s assume that if someone has landed at your store, as a result of your highly targeted marketing campaign they are actually looking for something that you sell.

Half of the work is therefore done -  all you now have to do is ensure that they can see that they are in the right place, as soon as they hit your homepage. Here’s how:

- Stick to standard navigation practices. Make sure all departments/categories have meaningful names and are clearly visible either in the left hand nav bar or across the top of the site.

- Have a search box prominently displayed – but consider not having one if your range is not that big as you dont want many searches producing n0 results)

- In your main middle section (above the fold) make sure you display clear, descriptive and eye-catching images alongside explanatory text links – arty pictures not related to what you’re selling and too many ‘more info’ or ‘view all’ links are not interesting to a fleeting eye.

- Display a best sellers list (as by their very nature they will probably be recognized by your visitors).

- Have some sort of link to your Clearance or Bargains page. You can bet that a % of your shoppers will be specifically looking for a deal.

- If there is a seasonal event related to your offer, create a category containing relevant products and link to it from here. Chances are your shoppers are looking for something for this event (e.g. a ”Valentines Gifts” page if you are a lingerie store)

- Don’t make the page too busy – i know it sound like a contradiction but this is very important – if you have everything you think you need on the page but the layout is too busy, the visitor will feel under pressure to take it all in and will likely lose interest. Here’s a great resource for modern homepage layout design

2. Landing Pages – are also your shop window (but often forgotten)

Although the majority of people will arrive at your homepage, many will arrive at a product or category page – especially as a) you will no doubt be running an effective PPC campaign that links to targeted destination pages,  and b) your site is built in such a way that Google has indexed all of your pages and you are top of the search results for the entire long tail of keywords and phrases that relate to your products…

So, now that is established you’ll understand the importance of making sure the landing pages follow the same principles as the homepage in  gaining the customers attention and their confidence that they have landed at the right place.

- Keywords – as the visitor is likely to have come to this page from some type of search, make sure this page clearly display images of what the search was for and that the keywords or phrase that they used to search for is nice and prominent . It also doesn’t hurt to  repeat the word/s a 2 or 3 times on the page (but don’t over do it)

- Call to Action – again, as the visitor has landed on a product or category page, they are arguably even more likely to make a purchase as their search was probably quite specific. So make sure you have some sort of  ‘buy’ or ‘add to basket’ button available.

- Route back to the homepage or related items – Bear in mind that a visitor may hit the landing page mistakenly, or may not actually like what they see but are interested in seeing what else is on offer. Always provide clear links back to the homepage and to similar items or related categories.

3. ‘Findability’ – help customers find what they’re looking for

A simple and easy to use navigational structure is important to cater for those visitors who like to  browse , not search – but , unless you display a vast list of categories (which I strongly advise against – see Point 1), not every category will contain items for everyone.  People naturally have different tastes and criteria.  So how do you put the right products in front of them? The answer is in refining and sorting the results to suit the users needs.

This feature is probably best described in pictures and one of my favourite sites to utilize these tools in Bluefly – a US fashion site.

In this example I’ve visited Bluefly because I’m looking for a black t-shirt. I could search for a black t-shirt but i don’t really want to see womens black t-shirts and there is a t-shirts category in the men’s section, so i think i’ll browse.

In the first screen shot you can see I have selected T-Shirts as the category I’m interested in. There are 6 pages of results; so quite a lot to browse through to get to what i want, and then it may not be available in my size anyway.

This is where the refining tool comes into its own – you can see  that i’m able to narrow the displayed results down to  my desired size, colour, price and even brand if i’d like. When my results are displayed i can then sort by price, bestsellers or the newest items.

So, back to the point – I’ve found exactly what I’m looking for in seconds and am now extremely likely to now buy something from here!

4. Product, Product, Product

Scrap everything I’ve just said!

Well, don’t, but hear this. Product, Product, Product – if you don’t have the right product to cater for the demand  of your target market, you may as well forget it.

I cannot stress enough that is it is the product that makes the sale – not pretty graphics, an easy to use site, or anything else for that matter – if the product stinks, people wont buy it – there, I’ve said it.

For the sake of carrying on and not pressing ‘delete post’,  I’ll assume you have the hottest products in your sector!

5. Something for Everyone – the long tail….

So you’ve got the hot products (!) and you’ve got a hot refining tool to quickly get people to what they want – now its time to expand the range. Fill up your store with everything your target market could possibly want. The wider the range, the more likely a visitor will buy something. Its simple really.  And this is where the Internet comes into its own. You may have  a warehouse with space limitations and overhead costs; I do appreciate that; but its nowhere near the cost and space limitations of a high street store – use this to your advantage and become a one-stop shop for your target market – why should they go anywhere else?

6.  Price Competitively

Basic retailing rules still apply – if your not competitive people will go elsewhere  – on the Internet your competitor is just a click away. Do your research, and keep it up.

7.  Simple checkout – make it easy to buy

So you’ve given the customers what they want – well done. But it is well documented that this is in fact a waste of time when it comes to at least 1/3 of them (some sources say 70% or more), who abandon their shopping baskets without making a purchase.

Granted, some people just change their mind, but there is undoubtedly a large % who just cant make it through the Checkout process. When reviewing your shopping basket , make sure you:

- Don’t hide any extra charges such as Delivery costs or VAT
Provide the customer with a clear indication of where they are in the checkout process

- Give customers the option of not creating an account

- Make it clear that your checkout pages are secure

8.  Easy customer & contact information – be available

There are thousands of sites out there. You probably don’t have the luxury of being a household brand, so you need to stand out from the crowd as a retailer of quality and integrity.

Be open and honest with your customers. Let them know how to contact you and what all of your policies are, every step of the way. They are far more likely to trust you if you trust them with this information.

9.  Accreditation to consumer watchdogs – for peace of mind

On a similar note, a good way to provide peace of mind for your customers – and therefore a greater propensity to buy from you – is to join an industry body and advertise this on your site.

They generally act as a middle man for any dispute that may occur between you and a customer, and provide a code of practice that you must adhere to. The fees to join these (around £100) are well worth the peace of mind that their logo on your site provides customers.

In the UK I would recommend the IMRG and Safebuy schemes. We at http://www.totsplanet.co.uk are members of these schemes as they provide peace of mind to our customers.

If you have taken the time to have a look online recently you may have noticed that there is an almost endless quantity of web hosts. An exact figure is virtually impossible to ascertain due to the fact that new hosting services debut regularly only to just fizzle out in a matter of time. After going through all the trouble and expense of having your website designed you are more than likely interested in finding the best web host you can get to make sure that all of your requirements are met.

After careful research you may be ready to base your decision based on things such as how many gigabytes and how much bandwidth they have to offer you and also there is always the price to consider when deciding on a web host. The fact of the mater, is that the web hosting business is a very competitive business and this is the reason why so many of them close their doors and go out of business not long after they have opened.

This high level of competition also means that there are web hosts that have great options for you to take advantage of when you are selecting a host for your website. The truth of the matter is that selecting a web host soley on technical qualifications alone is what far too many people do and it can be a mistake.

You must not let your high level of optimism with regards to your websites projected future success delude you from the fact that the Internet market place is highly competitive and this means that you will most likely have to put some work into things such as promotion and SEO in order for your web site to achieve a reasonable measure of success.

One thing that you will also want to look for in a web hosting service is if they have a functioning research tool that you can use for researching your competition as well as planning the use of your keywords. This is so important, because if you think that your website is going to explode in popularity without planning and promotion then you will most likely be in store for some measure of disappointment.

Another factor that you will want to give careful consideration to is whether your web host currently creates site maps and automatically pings Google, Yahoo and Ask. This is something that is very important, because if you have to do this yourself every time that you update your website or add a web page it can be very time consuming.

Still one more feature that you will want in an effective web host is tools that review the web pages that you have in your website and make suggestions regarding how to make improvements for search engines. The way that this tool works is you submit a new web page to it after completion and it will review it with regards to SEO and make suggested changes that you may want to consider. This will help maximize your page rankings in the search engines which is so important to having a successful website.

Video Games have a history of over 50 years and have been well documented. This is a synopsis of the most important milestones in the history of video gaming.

Video games can be dated back to 1952. It was A.S.Douglas who created the first documented computer game “Noughts and Crosses.”

The first American to invent an interactive video game was William A. Higginbotham. He invented “Tennis for Two” in 1958. In 1962, Steven Russell created “Space war.”

In 1971, Nolan Bushnell created the first coin arcade style game “Computer Space.” Ralph Baer, later known as “the father of video games”, created the first home game console, The Odyssey, capable of playing 12 different games.

The first multi-game home console, Atari 2600, with plug-in cartridges that store game information was released in 1977. 1978 saw Magnavox releasing – a console system that includes a full 49 key keyboard- Odyssey 2.

The popular Pac-Man was brought to the United States by the Japanese Company, Namco, in partnership with America’s Midway in 1980. Pac-Man is the first game to have an animated character with its own name.

Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto created Donkey Kong, introducing “Mario” as a character, in four different levels. Miyamoto went on to become an industry giant followed by a string of successful games beginning with Donkey Kong in 1981.

Software giant Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon in 1982 and released its first version of “Flight Simulator.”

The Americans, hitherto used to play games on slow systems with almost negligible sound systems, were overwhelmed by the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) released in 1986. NES had 8-bit color graphics, elaborate sound effects and faster game play.

As video games grew popular and addictive, a slew of games that were racist, pornographic and violent to the core, hit the market. This trend of feeding to the barbaric streaks in gamers began with Custer’s Revenge in 1983. This type of gaming reached a boiling point with the release of Mortal Kombat in 1992. The extreme violence in Mortal Kombat, lead to a Senate Investigation 1993.

Following the Senate Investigation, the Entertainment Software Association established The Entertainment Software Rating Board in 1994. This board began by providing ratings and information about video and computer game content. The ESRB has since evolved 6 ratings and 31 content descriptions that slot every game into a particular category.

While the games were growing rich in content and presentation, the technology available to play the games was not as best as one would have liked it to be. The systems were either too pricey or lacked the finesse to play the games. Breaking this spell in 1999, Sega released Dreamcast System. Dreamcast with its groundbreaking technology – VMS memory card/PDA and built in 56kbps modem for online play – was described by Popular Science Magazine as “one of the most important and innovative products of 1999.”

Technology at its best is available in the video game industry. Sony released the 128 bit Play station 2 – the first console to use DVD technology – with graphics capability that was better than that available on a PC. This is one of the major milestones of the year 2000.

Hoping to cash in on the video game popularity, the U.S.Army, gave away the game, America’s Army, for free. The motive was to attract new recruitment for the army. The game eventually became the top online action game in the country in 2002.

While the army was using the video games positively, citizens were concerned about the impact of “cop-killer” games. Deciding that enough was enough, Washington State signed a legislation prohibiting selling or renting cop-killer games to minors. This historical regulation, fining violators’ up to $500, came into force in 2003.

What has been listed here is only about what can be termed as Major Milestones in the evolution of Video Games and does not claim to be a calendar of events in the history of video games.

The truth behind affiliate marketing is that 90% of affiliates will routinely make less than $100 a month. Therefore, you shouldn’t count on making full-time income unless you can master the following:

1. Producing a effective web site that converts.

2. Search engine optimization. You’ll need a lot of traffic, as maybe one out of 200 visitors are likely to buy your products. SEO can help you get your site ranked in th

A customer relationship management (CRM) application that is not able to create reports is virtually worthless. Accurate reporting in a variety of user-defined ways is one of the core strengths of a good contact management database. Of course, this ability relies on the accurate entry of all the data required for any given report. Without accurate data entry you cannot realistically expect to extract any kind of accuracy in a subsequent report.

Many companies are unaware of the latent power inherent in the data that is entered into the CRM by their sales and marketing team. They fail to realize that all that valuable data can be output as a meaningful and extremely useful report, in addition to just being useful customer contact information.

However, this is something that needs to be thought about before a company rolls out a CRM. Correct measures need to be taken to ensure that the GoldMine® software, or ACT!® software used is customized enough to allow easy and accurate reporting of selected valuable data.

An example might be a sales person entering lead and prospect information, which, if transformed into a report, will reveal how many leads that sales person has. If all the sales people are combined, then the report could tell how many leads the company as a whole currently has.

Intelligent reporting will also show how well a particular sales person is doing. It can reveal the number of calls and appointments that person has for each client, and also how well, or otherwise, he is handling the task.

GoldMine®, for example, can be set up to enforce rules that enable a company to in turn force their CRM users to always enter the correct data. This is accomplished through a feature in the database called “field entry validation” that will not permit the entry of incorrect data.

Using GoldMine® or ACT!® you can also generate meaningful reports from live data. This includes pulling reports from sales people who are in the field using the software. The response of ongoing marketing activities can be monitored and returns on investment can be checked, all through the sophisticated reporting features of a good CRM.

Geographical segmentation revealing useful demographics can be obtained through reporting, showing you exactly where your customers are coming from. You can discover how many prospects turned into real customers by purchasing the product or service from you. If you wish to discover the strengths and weaknesses of you sales team, then monitoring sales pipelines and producing relevant reports will tell you exactly what you need to know.

The sales people can benefit directly from good analytics and reporting. They can effectively turn the tools on themselves to discover in a real-time basis just how good their performance really is. If this information is used for improvement, then the customer experience will benefit also and sales will increase. This puts real power in the hands of the sales people who can monitor their performance on a regular basis to check how they are doing.

The manufacturing job market is growing rapidly in China and sure is not declining a bit. Currently the manufacturing sector is one of the largest employment sectors in China and at the rate it is growing it sure is a concern for US manufacturers.

Economists believe if a sector grows in all parts of the world, then it is advantageous for all. But now we find that the manufacturing sector in China is growing and that is not the case for US manufacturers.

The boom started prior to 2001. Initially it was primarily private investors who initiated the boom, but today it is governments and businesses from all over the globe who seeks out to reap the reward of Chinese manufacturing.

According to analysts, China holds over 100 million workers in the manufacturing industry, while the US holds close to 60 million. These 100 million workers exclude the millions of migrant workers that China utilizes.

In China factories that are outside of city limits are frequently overseen by a different agency or body. The China Ministry of Agriculture oversees rural factories and the Ministry of Labor oversees urban factories. Rules and guidelines are stricter for the Ministry of Labor and thus on many occasions it will be more cost effective as a rural factory, not being obligated to pay employees certain benefits and the likes.

Consider this startling fact. There are 300 million people in the USA. China has a population of 1.3 billion. Of this 1.3 billion, approximate 200 million people are unemployed. Almost as much people as the USA has alone. Thus China has a huge reserve of labor and costs will still stay low for some time in the future. “Low” in terms of international standards.

Having looked at all of these considerations, China is a country rich in human capital to drive the manufacturing industry and definitely worth to be considered.