Fraud is continuing to be a major problem today with advances in technology and with more personal information than ever floating around on the internet.
Protecting yourself from eBay fraud when you are either buying or selling can be confusing if you are unsure of how to proceed.
When you are looking at an item on eBay you wish to purchase, check out the auction page closely. Examine the ad and see how legitimate it sounds and appears. Look at who the seller is and what kind of reviews he or she has gotten.
One of the best features of eBay is how you can leave a review of the seller's professional services, the speed at which he or she sends you the item, and the courteous behavior they exhibit. This is probably why eBay introduce Detailed Sellers Rating, so that buyers can assess the sellers in depth.
Before you purchase an item, take the time to review all refund policies. Most of the time, sellers do offer returns but shipping price will not be refunded. If you do not see any logic in the policies outlined by a particular seller, it's best to avoid buying from them.
When using eBay, 90% of the sellers offer payment through PayPal; a merchant solutions system which allows for payment from either your checking account or credit card without actually allowing the website to see your transaction number, keeping your transactions and card numbers safely guarded.
Although PayPal requires registration and a small fee for sellers, the safety it provides users with is well worth the cost. PayPal offers buyer and seller protection which includes fraud protection tools and tips on safety when selling and buying products.
The next best thing to avoid being scammed when buying on eBay is review carefully the images provided on an auction. If you look in details of the several photos posted by the seller, you can notice defects or similar issues by studying these.
While this method is not infallible as images can be faked, it is another method of protecting yourself.
Always trust your instincts; if a sale seems too good to be true or like it might be a scam, trust yourself and don't trust the auction.
Not buying the item is the best defense you have against being taken advantage of.
In the end, keep in mind eBay can only do so much to assist you in the event fraud occurs. Don't frivolously give out your personal information or buy an item which you have not carefully examined.
You may also wish to contact previous buyers who have purchased items from the seller before and ask their input too, although this is rarely done.
Jenny How is a full-time eBay Powerseller for 4 years. She owns a blog that shares valuable tips on how to sell on eBay and unbiased reviews on auctions and product sourcing resources. You can get her free book on Learn To Sell On eBay In 7 Days for full or part time profit at http://www.jennyhow.com/freecourse.htm
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Showing posts with label Search Engine Optimization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Search Engine Optimization. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Steps before hiring a SEO Service by Jessica Thomson
If you are thinking of hiring a SEO company to do your job of getting a higher ranking on search engine results, it is a good idea. After all you have to focus on your business and business strategy rather than worry about computer programs, web designing and SEO stuff. Increasing the volume of your business through search engine promotion is best done by outsourcing such jobs to professional SEO guys. However, there are quite a few pitfalls on the way and you should avoid them.
Before hiring a SEO company, ask a few questions to the company or try answering them yourself:
1. Has the company hard core marketing experience?
2) Since how long has the company been in business?
3) Is their list of satisfied clientele long enough? Can they show you testimonials from clients?
4) Can they provide references?
5) Can they show you a detailed report of previous jobs they have done for clients and the positions they have attained in their SEO jobs?
6) Do they also do an analysis of the web sites of your potential business rivals and try to find out why they have their present ranking?
7) How will the SEO Company find appropriate keywords? What is the methodology and technique that they will adopt to find them?
8) Do they do enough research before deciding the right keywords?
9) Do they have software to enable them to get just the right keywords?
10) Do they guarantee you the No. 1 position? The No. 1 position is not realistic to achieve in a few days. It takes months and probably years to achieve and so if they tell you, you will be No.1, they are probably taking you for a ride. Even 'Google' categorically denies any fool-proof chance of a No. 1 ranking.
11) How much content or more precisely the number of pages they will optimize for your site?
You should also gain more knowledge on areas like website submission, creating a 'content rich site', etc so that you at least know whether the steps taken by the SEO guy are on the right lines. QUALITY CONTROL Whatever the SEO guy tells you or whatever he says, you should have the last word on quality control. Ensure that the pages are designed and the content written keeping the reader in mind and not just getting a higher place on search engine results. See to it that links to your page are not of potential spammers as this will be spotted if the reader has an 'Anti Virus' software installed and may dissuade the reader from continuing to read the page. Also, your website should be easy for readers to understand and get increased search engine promotion and increase in the overall turnover and sales of your enterprise.
Before hiring a SEO company, ask a few questions to the company or try answering them yourself:
1. Has the company hard core marketing experience?
2) Since how long has the company been in business?
3) Is their list of satisfied clientele long enough? Can they show you testimonials from clients?
4) Can they provide references?
5) Can they show you a detailed report of previous jobs they have done for clients and the positions they have attained in their SEO jobs?
6) Do they also do an analysis of the web sites of your potential business rivals and try to find out why they have their present ranking?
7) How will the SEO Company find appropriate keywords? What is the methodology and technique that they will adopt to find them?
8) Do they do enough research before deciding the right keywords?
9) Do they have software to enable them to get just the right keywords?
10) Do they guarantee you the No. 1 position? The No. 1 position is not realistic to achieve in a few days. It takes months and probably years to achieve and so if they tell you, you will be No.1, they are probably taking you for a ride. Even 'Google' categorically denies any fool-proof chance of a No. 1 ranking.
11) How much content or more precisely the number of pages they will optimize for your site?
You should also gain more knowledge on areas like website submission, creating a 'content rich site', etc so that you at least know whether the steps taken by the SEO guy are on the right lines. QUALITY CONTROL Whatever the SEO guy tells you or whatever he says, you should have the last word on quality control. Ensure that the pages are designed and the content written keeping the reader in mind and not just getting a higher place on search engine results. See to it that links to your page are not of potential spammers as this will be spotted if the reader has an 'Anti Virus' software installed and may dissuade the reader from continuing to read the page. Also, your website should be easy for readers to understand and get increased search engine promotion and increase in the overall turnover and sales of your enterprise.
Search Engine Optimization for Strategic Marketing by Christian Fea
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website, and this is a key technique for a strategic marketing platform.
Search engine optimization drives traffic to a website by matching targeted keywords with searches performed by a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the list of search results, or the higher it ranks, the more people will visit that site. If someone performs a search for "cosmetics" and your website comes up in the first position on the first page, more people will go to your site than the site in the first position on the second page, or even to the site that is the fifth position on the first page. Search engine optimization can also target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, industry-specific, and vertical search engines.
As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's placement and relevance, search engine optimization considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. Search engine optimization may involve a site's coding, presentation and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site.
Another class of techniques, know as black hat search engine optimization or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm the search engine user's experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indexes.
SEO History
Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a spider to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.
SEO for Your Strategic Marketing Strategy
Having your website high in the rankings of a search engine is a strategic marketing way to increase your exposure. The higher you rank on a search engine, the more likely people are to visit your site.
The leading search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages are found automatically and do not need to be submitted separately. Some search engines, notably Yahoo, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click. These programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but do not guarantee specific ranking within the search results.
These are a few ideas on how to start thinking about applying search engine optimization to your business marketing plan. The first step to gaining new customers is by driving them to your site. Search engine optimization can be an important part of your successful strategic marketing plan by increasing the easy search-ability of your company's website and making your business more noticeable.
About the Author
Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A strategic Collaboration Marketing consulting firm. He empowers business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges. He demonstrates how to create your own Collaboration Marketing Strategy to increase your sales, conversation rates, and repeat business. Contact: christian@christianfea.com http://www.christianfea.com
Search engine optimization drives traffic to a website by matching targeted keywords with searches performed by a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the list of search results, or the higher it ranks, the more people will visit that site. If someone performs a search for "cosmetics" and your website comes up in the first position on the first page, more people will go to your site than the site in the first position on the second page, or even to the site that is the fifth position on the first page. Search engine optimization can also target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, industry-specific, and vertical search engines.
As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's placement and relevance, search engine optimization considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. Search engine optimization may involve a site's coding, presentation and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site.
Another class of techniques, know as black hat search engine optimization or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm the search engine user's experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indexes.
SEO History
Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a spider to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.
SEO for Your Strategic Marketing Strategy
Having your website high in the rankings of a search engine is a strategic marketing way to increase your exposure. The higher you rank on a search engine, the more likely people are to visit your site.
The leading search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages are found automatically and do not need to be submitted separately. Some search engines, notably Yahoo, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click. These programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but do not guarantee specific ranking within the search results.
These are a few ideas on how to start thinking about applying search engine optimization to your business marketing plan. The first step to gaining new customers is by driving them to your site. Search engine optimization can be an important part of your successful strategic marketing plan by increasing the easy search-ability of your company's website and making your business more noticeable.
About the Author
Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A strategic Collaboration Marketing consulting firm. He empowers business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges. He demonstrates how to create your own Collaboration Marketing Strategy to increase your sales, conversation rates, and repeat business. Contact: christian@christianfea.com http://www.christianfea.com
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