Ten Tips For Cyber Monday Shopping
November 30, 2008 by 
Sherry Tingley
Filed under Saving Money
Cyber Monday is the Monday after Thanksgiving. It is well known to internet shoppers and designed to kick off the beginning of the online Christmas holiday shopping season and offer deeply discounted items for sale on the Internet.
It is much easier to shop for Cyber Monday deals rather than fighting the crowds for Black Friday. More than 80% of the online retailers are planning to offer discounts on Cyber Monday, December 1, 2008.
Some interesting Cyber Monday shopping statistics
- 2007 Cyber Monday Hit Online Retail Spending Record of $733 Million
- 2007 Cyber Monday Online Sales Were Up 21 Percent From the Year Before
- 2007 Cyber Monday represented an 84-percent jump from the average daily online spending totals during the preceding four weeks.
Tip #1 - From Google - Check your budgets, and consider increasing them. You're likely to see increased traffic and you won't want to exhaust your budget early on a day when there are so many potential buyers.
Tip #2 - From Google - Give customers peace of mind about shipping times. One of the most stressful parts of online holiday shipping is not knowing if a present will make it in time. Be up front about delivery dates and let customers know ordering deadlines for gifts to make it in time for the holidays.
Tip #3 - From Google - Promote any special offerings in your ad text. If you have a holiday special that differentiates you from the competition, be sure to showcase it in your ad.
Tip #4 - Offer Free Shipping. Customers will be doing searches for items with Free Shipping.
Tip #5 - Check over 500 website deals at once at Cybermonday.com. They report on deals from KMart, Macys, Sears, Banana Republic, Walmart, Cabelas, J.C. Penney and hundreds of shopping sites.
Tip #6- Up To 50% off on Your Business Checks, Order Direct at Coolchecks.net
Tip #7- Check Ebay for CyberMonday Coupons
Tip #8 - Circuit City has a one-day only coupon this Cyber Monday, for those looking to buy a TV or Home Theater system. You can save an additional $100 on TV orders over $1,700 with coupon code YEA2M45AGJ
Tip #9 - Target is offering free shipping on orders over $50.
Tip #10 - Check out CouponChief.com for the latest in Cyber Monday coupons.
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10 Easy Steps to Conquer Stress
November 17, 2008 by Sherry Tingley
Filed under Life
Christine McFadden, a veterinarian from Merced, California went for her morning walk on March 26, 2002, leaving her four children, ages 17, 15, 14 and 5 sleeping peacefully. She had no reason to suspect something was wrong that day, but she would soon come back to her home to discover that her husband had experienced so much stress that he had taken a gun and killed all four of her children and himself.
Christine McFadden was miraculously able to recuperate from that tragic experience and move on with her life, eventually remarrying and having a set of twin girls.
Stress can ruin lives depending on how we deal with it. There are some easy ways that you can manage the stress in your life constructively and make good progress towards the goals you have set for yourself.
Tim Ferris, author of “The 4-hour Work Week", a New York Times best seller, a Wall Street Journal best seller and a Business Week best seller, has some basic advice for people about time management and dealing with stress.
In a nutshell, Tim Ferris has laid out a plan for people who are working from 9-5 and feeling like they can’t get everything done that they wished for during that time. His golden nugget of time management is to create a business working plan that is automated, where the “you” in the picture is completely replaceable and the money comes in regardless of the way you spend your time in any one day.
Tim Ferris recommends cutting out any time wasters and to look at your list of things you have to get done and make some cutbacks. If you had to eliminate one of your daily activities because you need an extra kidney, what would that activity be? His book is full of brilliant ideas about dealing with life.
I have compiled a list of 10 ways for you to effectively deal with stress in your life.
- Write down or keep a mental list of the environmental stressors that make you feel like pulling out your hair.
- During the day, rate each situation that is causing your stress on a scale of 1 – 10 with a 10 being you are ready to jump off a cliff.
- When you have rated your stress a 10, ask yourself what you can do about it in the present, right now.
- If you can’t do anything about it right now, decide when you can do something about it and make a plan to accomplish it.
- The world is programmed to solve problems between 9 and 5 whether you have a job that requires your presence or not. Can you take care of this level outside of the normal 9 to 5 time slot?
- Use the alcoholics’ anonymous concept - Grant me the wisdom to know when I can do nothing about this situation.
- Pick one person that you can calmly and frankly discuss this stressor with.
- Ask yourself how a three year old would handle this situation and then compliment yourself for not doing that.
- For every stressful situation that causes you a level 10 experience, find 3 things that you are extremely grateful for.
- Remember that people who have no stress are dead.
How do you deal with stress?
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Zoobie Pets Sales Over One Million Dollars
November 9, 2008 by Sherry Tingley
Filed under Money Making Ideas
Comments Off
Reed Smoot and his brother JC had a great money making idea that led to creating a line of products called Zoobie Pets that are sold in more than 30 different countries and over 1,000 stores. These brothers noticed that the toddlers in their family liked to carry blankets and pillows with them everywhere they went and so they used that idea to create cute fuzzy zoo animals that each has a blanket inside of it. So toddlers can carry a cute animal toy that is also a pillow and blanket.
Reed, 29, and JC, 26, of Provo, Utah, started the company with Ryan Treft, 26. They became extremely successful entrepreneurs. The first year of sales for their Zoobie Pets reaped over one million dollars in revenues. Who would know that catering to the toddler community could be so lucrative.
What made them successful?
- They had a clever product that was unique and appealing.
- They attended a Toy trade show in 2007 and received orders from over 100 stores as well as signing up several international distributors.
- They limited their sales to high-end stores like FAO Schwartz and Harrods.
- They only allowed purchases in container loads so that the distribution system was controlled.
- They adhered to safety rules in manufacturing their products
- Reid Smoot actually moved to Shanghai, China to oversee manufacturing of their toys.
These Zoobie Pets sold well last year and are predicted to be very popular Christmas presents for 2008. What a great money making idea by some very young entrepreneurs.
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How to Maintain Good Credit
November 7, 2008 by Sherry Tingley
Filed under Credit
Good credit is sometimes difficult to achieve. Even when it is achieved often times it's hard to keep your credit score in a decent range. One of the main credit factors that determines your credit rating is whether you pay your credit card bills on time or whether you frequently forget to send out that payment.
People have so many reasons for not paying their bills on time. Some of them are due to plain neglect and some are due to loss of a job or inability to work because of illness. Regardless of the reason, the credit card companies can report you to the credit bureau if you are over 30 days late on your payments. If you are just a few weeks late, they can make your life miserable by fining you huge fees.
When you find that you have gotten behind on your payments and your late fees are accumulating, you can always call your credit card company and ask for them to work with you on perhaps lowering your fee or eliminating it altogether depending on your reason for missing the payment. You'd be surprised how many fees can be eliminated by doing this.
You can contact the credit bureaus by calling these numbers:
- Equifax (800-685-1111)
- Experian (888-397-3742)
- Trans Union (800-888-4213)
Maintaining good credit will help you in your efforts to attain financial security. Financial security is defined as the comfortable feeling that your finanical resources will be adequate to fulfill any needs you have as well as most of your wants. Doesn't everyone deserve that?
Maintain good credit by paying your bills on time and keeping track of what is going on with your credit report before any big problems arise.
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Free Starbucks Gift Certificates for Writing Contest Winners
November 4, 2008 by Sherry Tingley
Filed under Contests
Win over $30 in Free Starbucks Certificate
Thanksgiving is coming up and in the spirit of giving, I have created a writing contest where you can be eligible to win over $30 in free gift certificates to Starbucks.
Starbucks gift certificates make great Christmas presents!
Use your imagination to get some free gift certificates and make money!
- First prize is a $20 - free gift certificate to Starbucks.
- Second Prize is a $10 - free gift certificate to Starbucks
- Third prize is a $5 - free gift certificate to Starbucks.
Here are the contest rules:
Write a short article about good internet business principles to follow. The article can be serious or humorous but it must have one of the following fun titles. Each of these titles has action words in them and are out of the ordinary in a lot of ways. All of these titles came from actual business management books.
All articles will be reviewed and if appropriate will be published. You may provide a link back to your website. Entries to this contest will end on November 21, in time to get these certificates to you by Thanksgiving. Winners will be announced on November 24.
Here are the titles to choose from:
Blue Blood and Mutiny
Everything I Know About Business, I Learned at McDonalds
Fallen Giant
Falling Forward
First, Break All the Rules
Green Business Strategy
Hide a Dagger Behind a Smile
How Full is Your Bucket
How the Wise Decide
Jacked Up
Made to Stick
Mavericks at Work
Our Iceberg is Melting
Planet Google
Reality Check
See Jane Lead
Sneaker Wars
Starbucked
Stay Mad For Life
The 10 Commandments for Business Failure
The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leaership
The 24 Carrot Manager
The 4 Obssessions of an Extraordinary Executive
The 48 Laws of Power
The 7 Leadership Principles That Drive Breakout Success
The Fifth Discipline
The First Billion is the Hardes
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
The Necessary Revolution
The Only Three Questions That Count
The Radical Edge
The Ultimate Question
The Wolf of Wall Street
Why Work Sucks
Wikinomics
Work Less, Do More
Have fun writing and getting a little free advertising as well.
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Business Community Review
November 2, 2008 by Sherry Tingley
Filed under Featured, Website Reviews
Internet Advertising
Scott Colley has a new website at GoodVibeBiz, that accentuates the positive aspects of business. This website is a place where people can post a review of any business they choose. It is designed to help spread the good word about new internet businesses.
If you have a company that you would like to review, just go to his site and fill out a form where you can let people know what you think. This benefits the business community and webmasters who would like free internet advertising. Word of mouth advertising is fantastic.
Clients submit business reviews, ask their customers to give their testimonials and everybody benefits. It’s a win, win situation. More traffic for your website and more qualified prospects for your business.
Google likes the GoodVib Biz
GoodVib Biz has been ranked number one by Google site for search term 'business review community.' It is starting to get a lot of attention from prominent businesses and will continue to grow.
Internet Advertising
According to Scott Colley, “Advertising in today's market is like herding 50 cats in a field. You're never sure what works best. This site gets people what they need in advertising - 'page one Google search results' and it's FREE, so the price is right!”
Benefits of GoodVib Biz
Scott Colley says, “When you look for the good, you tend to find it. I really do try to live my life finding the good in people and events, so it's been a natural extension to every aspect of my business.”
”Too many negative sites dominate our eyeballs on the Internet every day. Some of my clients get 'jammed' by one bad review from that one 'never happy' customer. This site's focus is getting folks to speak up about the good they encounter in businesses daily.”
Don’t waste any time. Get over to GoodVib Biz and start listing your Internet businesses now!
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Keyword Case Study for WordPress
November 1, 2008 by Sherry Tingley
Filed under Blogging Tips, Key Words, WordPress
Keyword strategies are so important to the success of your website business that they just cannot be overlooked. Although word of mouth adverstising is golden and frankly much easier than doing keyword research, using a good keyword strategy is mandatory. This article will go over some keyword strategy insights gained from a case study done over a four month time frame.
My previous article on keyword strategies for WordPress covered blogging tips and the question of where exactly in your posts do you want to see your keywords. While that strategy is the number one strategy you should use, you also should consider what happens to your website as a whole when you start adding good content on a regular basis.
The excel chart below (please click on it to enlarge it and read it well) explains an interesting thing that happened to www.coolchecks.net as a result of posting content to the blog a regular basis.
Many hosting companies provide website owners with a way to measure their traffic through a program called the Cpanel. Cpanel lets the webmaster control a lot of things on a website, but the thing I like best is the daily reports it can give you about your website traffic.
For my four-month case study, using the Cpanel web stats, I charted the results of the traffic I received from the keyword phrase “cheap checks.” This phrase is important to the site because the site sells bank checks.
When I charted the results I could see a dramatic increase in hits during the month of October, for the keyword phrase “cheap checks.” I had only changed a few words on the home page of this site to try to boost the rankings for “cheap checks" and I posted to the web blog on a regular basis.
My monthly hits to the site with that keyword increased by 1273! So how did that translate into real progress financially? There was an increase in revenue from the site of $601.38.
Examining the results from the chart above brought me to wonder about another statistic that I could easily pull from the Cpanel. I wanted to know how many search phrases were used during each month.
The chart below will show you the total number of keyword phrases used to bring people to my site over a four-month period of time.
You will notice a steady increase in keyword phrases. During October, there were 1299 keyword phrases people used to get to get to my site, while in July there were only 685. It appears that the number of keyword phrases almost doubled over four months.
There are several blogging tips you can learn from this keyword case study.
- Adding content on a regular basis can dramatically improve website traffic.
- The increase in traffic improves your keyword search results so you are ranked higher for the keyword you optimized for.
- More traffic means more revenue.
- Cpanel statistics are awesome and should be watched carefully.
- One keyword phrase that you rank well for can affect the other keyword phrases and bootstrap them to higher search result positions.
When you are developing your website business, don’t overlook the importance of a good keyword strategy and the power that it has to improve your financial condition.
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