Cyber World: 07/20/07

Friday, July 20, 2007

Why You Must Absolutely Have A Website?

by: Mark Gerrard

In today’s culture, a website represents your business card – even if you don’t have a business! Your child may have a website, your neighbour may have a website and even your local place of worship has a website.

A website allows you to communicate – keep in touch with as many people as possible while at the same time minimising the cost of doing so. Can you imagine the cost of consistently printing and mailing to 2000 loyal customers every month?

A website cuts down on your total cost of postage and your everyday word processing software cuts down on physically writing out every greeting or piece of correspondence.

However, a website does the one thing that you’re always looking for: a website helps to free your time.

Your time is the most precious commodity that you’ll never be able to get back. You’ll never be able to play that magnificent round of golf, go vacationing with the family or watching your child perform in their school play if you’re constantly trying to free yourself of responsibilities.

A website is a lot of work to start. That’s the truth. The best way to look at your website is to view it as your own body. When you put the right fuel (food) in your system your body runs efficiently. You aren’t constipated, you have lots of energy and you feel great. Combine this with a little exercise and you’ll live a fairly long life. When you start feeding yourself bad food, you start to feel tired and irritable. You may gain weight and start outgrowing your favourite clothing.

That’s the same thing that could happen to your website if it gets neglected. Just like your body, a website starts to deteriorate. The pride that you showed at having a website disappears and your website suffers.

If you still have doubts about having a website, think of it as your on-line sales centre. Imagine having a system that can take your orders when you are asleep. Or a system that will allow you to take a holiday and monitor your sales if you like without asking a sales manager? Maybe you don’t want to hire and train a new employee to take your orders and to know your sales process. A website helps you be better at what you do, not what you shouldn’t.

About The Author

Mark Gerrard is the Development Manager of the Freestart Website Builder Platform. See our website builder in action at http://www.freestart.com

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Distributed by Hasan Shrek, independence blogger. Also run online business , matrix, internet marketing solution , online store script .
Beside he is writing some others blogs for notebook computer , computer training , computer software and personal computer

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Do You Really Need A Website?

by: Mark Gerrard

Savvy business owners have jumped on the Internet bandwagon. Take a look at the amount of websites on the World Wide Web and you’ll see that the number is in the 100’s of millions. However, what does this mean for you? After all, you’ve been established and you sell solidly from your store-front; or on the other hand, you’re content to sell at the marketplace or other seller’s venues.

That’s perfectly fine. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing wrong if you’re content with your current sales volume. However, an increasing number of customers want to have the convenience of shopping from the Internet. Through a few clicks of the mouse and a few keyboard strokes, they can have the product shipped to their house and they didn’t have to speak to a salesperson!

Can you afford to miss out on this potential revenue stream?

Here are 3 reasons why you, as a business owner need a website:

1) Your Customer’s Expect You to Have a Website

Maybe you’ve had a few customers ask if you have a website. When you reply, “No” or “Not yet”, do you get a sinking feeling that you just lost buyer’s who would gladly buy from you multiple times without the trip to your store?

2) No Pressure Selling

Customer’s really, really hate pressure selling techniques. In fact, when sales people approach most customers, the typical, “I’m just looking or I’m just browsing” is the typical answer. So why not let your customer browse? Get a website and they can browse all they want without having a sales person breathing down their neck. The perception is that your customer feels relatively at ease because there’s no one trying to alter their decision. The reality is that every step of the way, you’re reminding the customer to buy from you and making it easy every step of the way to get what they want, all through your website.

3) Accounts for 3 Times the Amount of Sales vs. Phone Sales

There are numerous marketing studies done that all point towards the same conclusion: a website has 3 times the amount of sales than phone sales/walk-ins. So, 25% of sales result from phone/walk-ins and 75% result from on-line sales. These groups tend to be mutually exclusive as well (and phone sales/walk-ins tend to be more mature buyers age 50+) as opposed to Internet buyers, (age 16-49).

In conclusion, do you really need a website? Yes, you do.

About The Author

Mark Gerrard is the Development Manager of the Freestart Website Builder Platform. See our website builder in action at http://www.freestart.com

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Learning About Search Engine Optimization: What Is It?

by: Ashton Dixon
Before you even think about setting up a website, you have to understand the term search engine optimization and its importance. When you set up a website with the intention of selling a product or service, you have to be able to draw traffic to your website or it's not going to perform the job that you intended for it to perform. The process is not as simple as building a website and expecting everyone to find it. In order for potential customers to find your website, they must be able to locate it during a search, and that's where search engine optimization comes into the picture.

You already know, or should, that once you build a website and upload it to the web, you then have to submit that website to the various search engines in order for anyone to find it when they are conducting a search. You probably also know the importance of Meta Tags in order for those search engines to be able to list your site so that it does come up in a search. What some new web builders do not realize is how search engine optimization works and its importance. Search engine optimization or SEO involves the placement of a sequence of keywords that are part of the text on your website. They are placed within the website to meet a certain density requirement, usually 1.5%-3% depending on the needs of the website owner. The same key phrases may be rearranged in different ways or spelled differently within the text on your page in order to allow for more keyword optimization within your site. In some cases, commonly spelled words may be deliberately misspelled in order to allow for the proper optimization this is to reflect the different ways that a web surfer may spell those keywords when conducting a search.

The purpose of the keyword placement and density is to give your website the highest placement possible with the search engines, especially the most commonly used, Google. Placing your website high within the search engines means that when someone does a keyword search based on terms that are on your website, you increase the chances that your page will come back as one of the first results. Keep in mind that when people are searching, they only read a certain number of pages within the results, so the sooner your page shows in those results, the better than chances are that someone will actually click on the link that will lead to your page. Unless you are completely familiar with the process of search engine optimization, you may want to hire an SEO expert to take care of this for you to ensure that your site obtains the highest ranking possible.

About The Author

Ashton Dixon: Internet Made Millionare
Visit http://www.makedinero.com for Home Business Ideas and Opportunities

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Joomla Revolution! How This Free Software Is Changing The Web?

by: Antonio De Luca

Joomla is changing the web, there is no one better sentence to describe
what this young FREE SOFTWARE project is doing from two years ago. We
all know that the web permeates today all sides of our life and
therefore is perfectly comprehensible that Joomla, been born as a CMS
for simplified construction of sites of all types, is interesting a lot
of people around the world for the incredible amount of its FREE
extensions, that are available through the central site
extension.joomla.org, and for its large development community that give
support and constantly enhancements of features.

But now Joomla wouldn't not be more considered only a CMS, whatever
are the applicative targets in which we are interested to use it for.
The time of standalone applications is ending and therefore we should
understand that a revolutionary web application platform as Joomla is
the right solution that all people are waiting for. The new version of
Joomla, currently in Beta2 state, is an innovative and intuitive
implementation of the MVC pattern, a famous generalized programming
architecture that force the developers to write a more scalable and
manageable code and that give to others a lot of competitive advantages
as User Interface separation, lower development cost, greater
reusability and maximized stability and adaptability.

Joomla 1.5, that's the version number of the new platform, has been
rewrote from the scratch by the Core Development Team to obtain a very
powerful framework that will boost web developer productivity and that
will maximize the users experience. Obviously the Core Team don't know
what will be the really boom that this new project would generate on
the web but we can admit for sure that the stable release is attended
from thousands of people.

Joomla 1.5 have the great merit of not attempt to be a "all purpose
application in itself", trying instead to give users a solid platform
around which can revolve various types of third party developed web
applications. Joomla 1.5 is using moreover only well supported and
diffused technologies as PHP and MySQL and it join these ones with an
Enterprise oriented vision.

Joomla 1.5 is not compatible with the old Joomla 1.0.X and
therefore a lot of people are thinking that only a few part of already
existing extensions will be adapted to this system. The problem is that
not all extensions, more precisely a lot few, are compatible with the
new version of this framework. Some people believe that a software,
that already do well what it would have to be done, is already a
perfect software and that there are no reasons to change the way it
work. They can ask for: "Why I should change my perfectly running
system?". The answer is simple: "Because the time is changing and is
not possible to use again a bicycle to drive into an highway".

Joomla 1.5 will help developers to implement stronger and powerful
applications that will be available only to who will approach a new web
project using this new platform. At the same time others old Joomla
extensions , that are not compatible, will remain out of a market that
will have the maximum momentum in the nearest future.

Many people have talked in those last years about the end of
Internet economy and about a possible crash of all the infrastructure.
Nothing wouldn't be more wrong. Internet is the future and only now we
are seeing it arriving in our real daily life.

Internet is far from the period in which it was constituted of
simple sites. Now internet is becoming a complex network of interactive
systems and a lot of our social and economic habits are already based
on it or they will be very soon. Every days thousands of people,
companies and institutions join the big network with the objective of
not only read/made some simple web pages.

Today we all ask for more interactivity and integrability of
systems that get us capable of live and work in the new global world.
Unfortunately users understanding is not evolving as fast as the global
system in itself. We all also ask for solutions that simplify this
tremendous competition and that will define a standard to help people
in managing their web experience.

Evolution is not really if it is not for all and therefore a good
solution MUST BE a FREE SOFTWARE one that people can use, modify, adapt
and redistribute without limits. People need also simplicity because
they wouldn't lose their time in trying to understand all the
technological background.

Joomla 1.5 is offering NOW a FREE and REVOLUTIONARY web
applications framework that with the use of thousands of external third
party applications get users capable of implement their web place. It
is very simple to install, config and use. Extensions are constantly
growing and will cover all aspects of online activities very soon.

Joomla 1.5 will be the best choice for every day web development
when interaction and availability of software would not continue to be
limited on a single workstation. Joomla 1.5 will be the obviously
choice for who will want to start projects with usability and
simplification in mind. Joomla 1.5 will be the next web revolution for
people that are not expert or guru. Joomla 1.5 will be the New Internet
Indoor for who have never thought that he can do anything of this type.
Joomla 1.5 will discover the Internet Potential of all people.

Antonio De Luca - http://www.antoniodeluca.info

About The Author

Antonio De Luca is an italian freelance web consultant and developer.

He works aroung the Free Software world and are a Joomla CMS Expert and specialized in the Joone Neural Network Platform.

He manages also a good directory, on his site, called Lighthouse, where
you can find a lot of useful informations and tools specifically aimed
to the web.

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Spring Cleaning And Website Maintenance For Your Website

by: Cliff Posey Jr

Regular website maintenance is an important aspect of owning an online business. Just like a house, your website needs an annual spring cleaning. Certain website maintenance tasks should be performed throughout the year to keep content relevant. Other tasks can be done once a year.

You may be worried that website maintenance is costly, but there are many budget web design methods that can be employed to get the job done. Here is a list of budget web design tips that will help you perform the regular website maintenance that every site needs.

Budget Web Design Tip 1

Visit Competitor Sites

The contents of your site should project the image that you want to promote. For example, if you have a fun website, you should have lively colors and graphics. If you have a website that is serious in tone, the look should reflect that. When performing any type of website maintenance, you should regularly check competitor sites to see what else is out there. While you're surfing the web, be sure to take notes on what you liked, what you didn't, and why. Use these notes to develop an original site that stands out among the competition.

Budget Web Design Tip 2

Analyze Your Website

To properly perform website maintenance, you need to know what your website needs. To determine this, put yourself in your visitors' shoes. Look around. Do you see anything that's missing or can be approved upon? If so, determine how it can be changed. You may also want to consider having a trusted friend or family member look over your site. Ask them to provide an honest assessment, and then use their opinions to better the site. Specific things you may want to ask them about include the site's look and feel, the ease of navigation, and the site content itself.

Budget Web Design Tip 3

Update Your Content

Refreshing content is the top reason to perform website maintenance. Keeping your news pieces and informational content fresh is important. If your web content is stale, visitors will search elsewhere for the things they need. Studies show that sites that are updated regularly have more returning visitors and higher page views. Search engines will also give you more attention if you regularly update your pages with fresh content.

Budget Web Design Tip 4

Learn New Design Skills

Credible websites look professional. If you don't have the design know-how to perform website maintenance yourself, brush up on your skills. There are many free classes and low priced ebooks online that can teach you everything you need to know to redesign your website. There are also many different tutorials that can take you through the process step by step. If you don't have time to learn as you go, you may also want to consider hiring a reasonable priced professional who can perform website maintenance and get the job done for you.

Budget Web Design Tip 5

Track Your Results

After you have completed the website maintenance and implemented a few changes, you will want to track the results of your efforts. Check the logs on your website to determine whether or not you had an increase in visitors or sales. If there are no changes after several months, you may want to consider stepping up your efforts. Run back through the list of budget web design tips. Was there anything you missed? Was there anything that you could do better? If so, take the time to do it. Remember, profitable websites aren't started overnight. They take hard work, dedication, and continuing efforts to succeed.

About The Author

Cliff Posey, owner of CRP Marketing, owns and operates http://webbusinesstoolsonline.com. Cliff Posey has also operated several other successful web businesses including Love Song Cards and Radio Career Consultants. The content in this article was developed from his experience in these businesses

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Is Your Website Being Read? Why People Don’t Read Your Web Page

As the world virtually shrinks into the window on your computer screen,
the web site is the best and a must-have tool for any business. Not
only can it reach a global audience, it will boost your local exposure
exponentially—at a minimal cost.

However, your business web site isn’t, and shouldn’t
be, just an electronic version of your product/service brochure. It
could also be another potential revenue-generating source.

Just like a printed brochure, your web site doesn’t get read
by your visitors from top to bottom. At least not initially—and
not until you get them interested in what you have to offer.

First Impression

As the saying goes,

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

And nowhere is this truer than on the Web. Your prospects form an
instant impression of you and your company the moment your home page
displays onto their computer screens.”

In a mouse click, your prospects determine who you are, how they
feel about you, and decide if they want to do business with you. Is
your web site creating the impression you want? Your business web site
acts as a silent salesman for your business. Knowing this,
wouldn’t you want to “dress” it to WOW your
customers?

Web Design vs Web Creation

Being able to draw doesn’t make one an artist. Just as having
written an essay doesn’t make one a novelist. At least not
without years of practice and training. Similarly, and with the
widespread availability of professional software, you as a small
business owner may choose to design-it-yourself (DIY). You may think
you could create your own artwork, “design” a promotion
flyer, build a web site.

However, to design something to visually communicate effectively
and compellingly, you have to consider its clarity, font usage,
readability.

Other things to consider are:

* Your business communications

* Branding and marketing mix

These are business communication problems to be addressed. You also
need to consider its consistency, identity, colour, professionalism,
integration, innovation and emotional impression.

Usability

Have you ever gone for a drive with a map someone else made and it
is poorly drawn or just wrong? We all hate the frustration of getting
lost. A difficult or inefficient navigation would break your web site
as quickly and easily as it was created (by yourself). We evaluate the
consistency, innovation, linkage, usability and presentation of the
design.

We also evaluate the resolution requirements, complexity,
consistency, usability to test the effectiveness of the web site
layout.

How We Really Use the Web

In his book, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, web usability guru, Steve Krug, writes:

“When we’re creating sites, we act as though people are
going to pore over each page, reading our finely crafted text, figuring
out how we’ve organized things, and weighing their options before
deciding which link to click.

What they actually do most of the time (if we’re lucky) is
glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first
link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing
they’re looking for. There are usually large parts of the page
that they don’t even look at.”

How we really use the web site

Krug adds that if one wants to design effective Web pages, there are three facts about real-world Web use to consider:

1) We don’t read pages. We scan them.

Why? Because:

* We’re usually in a hurry.

* We know we don’t need to read everything.

* We’re good at it.

2) We don’t make optimal choices. We satisfice.

Why? Because:

* We’re usually in a hurry.

* There’s not much of a penalty for guessing wrong.

* Weighing options may not improve our chances.

* Guessing is more fun.

3) We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through.

Why? Because:

* It’s not important to us.

* If we find something that works, we stick to it.

About The Author

Sherman Cheong

Pagethinker is all about web design tips for online marketing.
Helping online marketers create effective websites using simple design
principles; increase the user experience of your visitors to your
website; attract customers and links; sell something! http://www.pagethinker.com

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Wise Words: Analyse Keywords For Better Website Positioning

Good analysis and research is the main criteria when it comes to
sorting out your keywords. Easier said than done though in the great
majority of cases. Engaging an expert is possibly one of the best moves
you'll make, as they'll run rings around any amount of work you'll do
on your own. The difference between the best keyword analysis software
and the freebees can be colossal. The best tools will unearth some real
eye openers you'll never have thought about.

One elementary yet very common mistake is to gather together a
bunch of keywords and to copy them across an entire website. This will
drastically reduce the effectiveness of pages. If instead you focus and
carryout research upon 2 to 5 words per page the results are likely to
be much better.

It's worth remembering that keyword spellings can obviously vary
from country to country. If we consider some of the most outstanding
differences between English speaking nations such as England, the US
and Australia, a whole new batch of keywords may be worth further
analysis. Not only are spellings possibly different but also entire
words will have their alternatives (eg pavement and sidewalk). Complete
phrases may also be regularly used and understood in one country but
not in another. Particular phrases can even vary greatly on a much more
local level, especially if we consider popular sayings and slang. That
said one of the best policies you can adopt is to check your keywords
regularly. All things web related tend to change fairly quickly. What
works today could be desperately out of line tomorrow. Once you feel
you have a good set of keywords together, you'd be best advised to
carryout some basic search engine tests. Testing will illustrate:

* If keywords are correct for the niche of the page concerned.

* Competitiveness of keywords and the strength of the competition.

* If sites ranked for particular keyword searches are really
competitors or have any relationship to the area in which you compete.

OK, now's the time to hit you with a big one – Latent
Semantic Indexing otherwise referred to as Latent Semantic Analysis.
Gosh where did that one suddenly come from? Well it's possibly too much
to adequately detail in this brief article, but worth mentioning
nevertheless. If you want to get serious about your keywords and SEO in
general, then some additional research around LSI will do you the world
of good. Wikipedia lists LSI as a "technique in natural language
processing, in particular in vectorial semantics, of analysing
relationships between a set of documents and the terms they contain by
producing a set of concepts related to the documents and terms". Well
no one ever said it was simple, but basically from a search engine
performance point of view we are interested in the relationship,
grouping, positioning and variation of terms. Occasionally the right
mix can just be stumbled across but most web designers wouldn't really
be aware they'd got it right or wrong. First understanding and then
using this mix intelligently can set your pages leagues ahead of the
competition.

As pointed out at the start it's perhaps best leaving the whole
business of SEO and keywords to the experts. This is assuming you can
find someone who's competent and has your best interests in mind. If
your budget is only small or you site performs so badly that anything
is an improvement, then the best advice is to keep it simple. Sorting
out your keywords for a site that has previously coped reasonably well
without will make a big difference. Don't expect overnight success. The
top search engines move at their own pace, so it's not uncommon for
site modifications to take several weeks to filter through to an
improvement in search positioning.

This article is free to republish provided the resource information remains intact

About The Author

Paul Coupe is lead designer / developer with Zoom Online.

Zoom Online - Providing total online solutions.

Contact: paul@zoom-online.co.uk

http://www.zoom-online.co.uk/e-marketing/Wise_Words_Analyse_keywords_for_better_website_positioning.htm

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Stay Home Vs. Working Mom - Let's End The War!

by: L. J. Allen

Sometimes it can seem as though stay at home moms and working moms are
battling against each other. The truth is, there are lots of women who
stay at home with their children, and there are some moms who work. The
other truth is, one of them is not better than the other. As moms, we
all love our children, and we all want them to be happy. There are many
advantages and disadvantages to both staying at home, and working
outside of the home.

Staying at home with your children is great because you are able to
be with them all day. You are able to bond more with your children, and
instill more of your values and what you feel is important into your
children. It also gives you a great feeling to be able to be with your
children all the time. However, staying home with your children can
also make them more dependent on you than most other children are
toward their moms. It can make them fear leaving you, whether you're
leaving them at school, or with the babysitter for a night off. The
disadvantages to you are being on call all the time. It can make you
feel like you want to tear your hair out! Also, although you have one
of the hardest jobs, you're not actually bringing in an income.
Although, today many moms are working over the internet, or with home
businesses.

Mothers who work outside the home get their chance to be someone
else other than 'mom.' They can concentrate on what they are trying to
do much better than a mother who works at home. The only 'kids' they
have in their hair are the ones they work with! Also, being away from
your children more will foster a greater sense of independence in them.
Disadvantages to working outside the home are obvious. You don't get as
much time to spend with your children, and this can make you feel
guilty or neglectful. Also, you have to know that whoever may be your
children's caretakers will have an impact on what your children grow to
believe.

Whether we work outside the home, or stay at home with our kids, we
are all mothers. We all want the same things for our children.
Happiness, opportunities, and we want to give them all we can. Being a
mother is hard enough today. We need to stick together as moms,
whatever kind of mom we are. Supporting each other in motherhood and in
life is what is important. Support each other's decisions and be proud
of the decision that you have made. Let's end the war!

About The Author

Linda Allen is the co-founder of GirlfriendsCafe, a social networking site for women throughout the United States and Canada.

http://www.girlfriendscafe.com

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Writing Articles - Can put money in your pocket

by: John Arrington

Writing articles has one purpose and that is to generate traffic, not to be written as a sales letter.

Writing and submitting articles can generate huge amounts of traffic and create a very nice income for you, if done correctly.

If you are starting a Home Business and want to make money online than articles are the way to go. Why? Because

traffic generated from submitting articles is all targeted traffic. Because those who search online for information click on your article are searching for what you have to offer.

To see the amounts of traffic and sells needed to become successful online you must write at least one article a day.

More the better you must have at least 200 or more articles submitted to top quality article Directories before you start seeing results from your efforts.

The process is slow at first and than in about six months you'll start to notice an increase in traffic and sells generated from all those articles you have submitted.

Just stay focused and continue writing more and more articles and you'll reap the rewards later, in some cases for years to come.

There is money to be made writing and submitting articles. If you don't give up and quit.

If you are looking for a quick buck, writing and submitting articles is not the answer. You must be committed for the long haul. And sooner or later you'll profit big.

NOTE: Work hard now and relax later. Or work hard all your life and have nothing to show for it.

Copyright © 2007 & Beyond All Rights Reserved.

This article may be distributed freely on your website and in your ezines, as long as this entire article, copyright notice, links and the resource box are unchanged.

About The Author

John Arrington has 12 years experience in the marketing business. And has helped countless of people to become successful. Blog site: http://jarrington.blogspot.com/

If you want to learn how I do it. I just released a new ebook loaded with all the techniques you'll ever need to know about making money submitting articles. It's called "Article Marketing Masterminds" Get it here: http://tiptopwebsite.com/johna

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Book Review: Best Of Friends

by: Sherry Brantley

"Best of Friends" is a novel about the lives of the "Fabulous Five." The Fabulous Five is a group comprised of five wonderful, loyal ladies who have been best friends for years. Each woman in the group has her own issues to deal with and to learn from. The story mainly centers around Liz, whose mother has just passed away. Liz's family is about as dysfunctional as a family can be. The siblings have taken sides with each other. Liz always tries to be neutral, but when their backstabbing antics are directed at her, she finds herself unable to do so anymore.

Kim is another lady in the group who has finally met Mr. Right. Kiona, a female player, is deciding to settle down with one of her catches. When she and her boyfriend decide to move in together, they both have to learn to make compromises and to get over their commitment phobias. AJ allowed a bad marriage to tear her down and take her out of a promising career. Struggling
to care for her twin daughters, while she is on welfare, she fears that all is going to be lost. But her perseverance finally pays off and she finds herself back on track. Quineeta is single and loving it, however, when she has a health crisis, she relies on herself to get through it, when really she should have let her friends be there for her.

"Best of Friends" is truly an enjoyable novel. The author, Sherry Brantley has an awesome imagination which she puts to use in dreaming up plots for Liz's family to use against each other. She does an excellent job of character development. These ladies are very three-dimensional and Brantley lets you into their heads and hearts to make them seem more real. I could relate to so many of their experiences, and the doubts and fears that invade their minds were so similar to my own. Brantley also incorporates a touch of spirituality throughout her writing. I loved this because as she addresses Liz's dilemmas, she does so in a way that has Liz evaluating her actions on a higher level and making the realization that if she had taken the higher road, things would have been better. It wouldn't have been as fun to read about though!

"Best of Friends" is a must read for a women's reader groups. This will be a fun book to discuss. It is also the perfect book for a lady that needs an evening to herself, where she just wants to cuddle up with a great story. Don't miss this one!

Best of Friends
Sherry Brantley
Lulu (2005)
ISBN 9781411645455
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (4/07)

About The Author

Inspirational speaker and author of the book Choices: The Power Is Within You, Sherry Brantley is known for her dynamic, energetic seminars and workshops. Best of Friends is her first novel. Learn more at http://www.inspirationalvoice.com

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The Art of Persuasive Business Writing

by: Courtland Bovee

All good writing involves persuasion-getting the reader over to your
side. You may be writing to persuade a colleague to take on a new
project, writing a blog post trying to persuade people to accept a new
idea, or writing persuasive advertising copy for a new product. In each
situation, your goal is to persuade your readers that you have
something to say and that it is in their best interest to take the
action you have requested.

Here are five elements to keep in mind when writing persuasive messages.

1. "You" attitude. Too much business writing has an "I" or "we"
viewpoint, which causes the writer to sound selfish and not interested
in the reader. If you want to get your point of view across, convey
information, or persuade the reader, you have to talk in terms of the
reader's interests, hopes, wishes, and preferences. Good writing
psychology requires that you present your message in light of the
reader's viewpoint rather than your own.

"I" or "We"

To help us process this order, we must ask for another copy of the requisition.

We trust you will extend your service contract.

"You"

So that your order can be filled promptly, please send another copy of the requisition.

By extending your service contract, you can continue to enjoy topnotch performance from your equipment.

2. Warmth. You can make all sorts of mistakes in your messages yet
still leave your readers with a good feeling if you can convey the
magic intangible of personal warmth. Warmth is more difficult in
writing than it is in oral communications. Essentially, warmth is an
aspect-possibly even the measure-of the "you" viewpoint. You should not
only demonstrate concern for the audience's problems but interest in
their attitudes and an appreciation of the ways in which handling the
situation is going to be helpful to them.

3. Parallel experience. One way of touching the right spots with
your reader is to draw on a parallel situation in your own experience.
Build your writing around this experience, or use what you learned as a
basis for your writing. By creating a sympathetic bond between you and
your reader, you enhance the person-to-person connection and help your
reader to become more open to what you are saying.

4. Good manners. If you want to persuade your reader, you must show
impeccable manners. In other words, be nice. If you are rude or overly
aggressive, your reader will shut down to your argument and turn
elsewhere. When in doubt, put yourself on the other end of the writing
and ask, "How would I feel if this was directed at me? Would I be
offended, or would I be open to listening to more?"

5. Tone. The tone of your writing goes beyond the content of your words
and offers the reader an overall feeling or indication of your meaning.
The overall tone of your message will depend on the subject, but a
general guideline is to stay positive. Suggest to your reader that you
are interested in his or her problems and in solving them. A good tone
is ruined by using harsh words or phrases. Some examples:

Poor...........................Improved

the alleged loss...............the loss you refer to

you claim that.................we understand that

you neglected to send..........you did not send

in which you assert............you tell us

if we were at fault............please accept our apologies

we request that you send us....please send us

Persuasion is an art, not a science-but that does not mean there is
no winning formula. By incorporating these five elements into your
business communication, you will have a greater chance of getting your
reader to stop, listen, and take the action you want.

About The Author

Courtland L. Bovee, one of America's leading
instructors in clear and effective communication, co-authors several
leading college-level texts with John V. Thill, a prominent
communications consultant and current Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of Global Communication Strategies. Their website, Business
Communication Headline News, the #1 business communication site on the
web, is at http://www.businesscommunicationheadlinenews.com.

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