By: Bruce T. Woodward

The marketing game can be a tricky one in online and offline businesses alike. This article will outline ways that you can help avoid the pitfalls of the marketing game.

First off, free is not always good. Yes it is cheap, but sometimes – if not often – cheap is exactly what you get. What you must keep foremost in your mind with any type of marketing is knowing where to devote your hard work for the best possible outcomes.

Sometimes time is money. What I mean by that is sometimes the time that it takes to post ads to “free” classifieds sites could have been spent as less time and a little money with far better results.

The problem with “free” classified and other posting sites (aside from forums) is that most of the “readers” are actually the marketers themselves, so you must ask … who reading the ads are really going to click on them?

Google Adwords is a great way to spend a little money but get a lot in return. If you use the old Overture keyword tool, then you can pick keywords within your niche that are the most popular, and get targeted clicks to your site.

I am sure that you have heard that being listed in the search engines is not as important as getting targeted clicks through pay-per-click (such as Google Adwords) or other paid services. In a sense I agree, however I cannot understate the importance of being listed in the major search engines.

Even though the clicks may not be as targeted as a paid advertisement, visitors coming from Google and other search engines can help your site a great deal. The key to getting more targeted traffic from the search engines is to be targeted with your keywords.

A lot of marketers that have not had great success from the search engines tend to use just random keywords for the sake of getting more visitors due to showing up in more searches. This simply does not make sense to me. For instance, if you are wanting to sell your car, and get the most targeted people that would be interested in your car, why would you put keywords in your ad for say … dogs?

If you are selective with your keywords and stick to what you are selling in your keywords, then people searching those keywords will be targeted to your site. Chances are, if they are taking the time to type into a search engine search bar keywords relative to your site, there is a good chance, if you have otherwise optimized your site to appear in at least the top five sites, that you will get a click through from a potential customer that is interested in your product.

This would be the good form of free advertising. However, you must flip the coin because even though listings in search engines do not cost money, they do cost time and effort to get the rankings needed to be of help in your marketing. They require “tweaking” your site so that it is optimized to its fullest potential. And, increasingly the practice of search engines is to rank according to site popularity, incoming and outgoing links, and keywords. For instance, if you have a site that has the same keywords as a competitor, but your competitor has fifty (solid) incoming (that is links from other websites pointing to your competitors site) links, then that site will take precedence over yours in the search engines, possibly taking sales away from you.

In conclusion, though there are certainly pitfalls in “free” classified ads, there are many potentials in pay-per-click campaigns such as Google Adwords and also with search engines … if you are willing to spend the time instead of the money to get your site in the top five.

Article Written By: Bruce T. Woodward

http://profiting4less.com/default.aspx

By: Charissa Bear

CNN recently published results of research done at Salary.com. It stated that “The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, the company concluded, and works at least 10 jobs. In order of hours spent on them per week, these are: housekeeper, day-care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and psychologist. By figuring out the median salaries for each position, and calculating the average number of hours worked at each, the firm came up with $138,095 — three percent higher than last year’s results.”

That alone should make any stay at home mom feel valued. Unfortunately not all potential employers see it that way. Instead of seeing a fantastic candidate who is more than capable of multitasking, problem solving and having impeccable organization skills, they see a mom who hasn’t worked in years. The dilemma – how can SAHMs create a resume which offers the opportunity to receive an interview?

Concentrate on your skills. There is no hard rule that says a resume is merely job history. Rather use bullets which annotate results achieved. For example:

Instead of: Mom’s Taxi Driver
Try: Possess reliable transportation.

Instead of: Getting kids to and from school, practice and lessons
Try: 100% attendance. Over the past eight years I have not called in sick once nor been tardy to scheduled appointments.

Instead of: Laundry slave
Try: Able to multitask multiple projects at one time, resulting in a smoothly run operation.

Instead of: Sibling referee
Try: Calm under pressure.

You get the idea. The biggest challenge moms have getting back into the workforce is that lack confidence or sense of accomplishments. Staying home to manage the household and care for the family is one of the most difficult occupations around. If you don’t believe me – ask any stay at home mom. Most would agree that they had it much easier collecting a paycheck from someone else; however there is no comparison as to the rewards of working at home.

Have fun with your resume; don’t get stuck in the quagmire worrying about lack of job history. Concentrate on your transferable skills and you’ll be fine. If you’re still at a loss on how to best display your skills, considering hiring someone to help you put together a professional resume and cover letter. You have what it takes. Employers will be fortunate to have you on their team! You can do it!

Charissa Bear is the owner of www.momsinc.biz, a work at home mom site with telecommuting resources and home based business ideas.

Article Source: http://greatarticlesformoms.com