Cloud hosting is definitely something more and more people are talking about in these days but there is unfortunately a fine line between marketing hype and performance-based fundamentals, which recommend one service or another as effective. As an online business owner, you cannot afford to make uninformed decisions. After all, if your site is offline, you are not able to make money and at the end of the day, that counts more than going with the flow in terms of hosting.

As far as dedicated servers are concerned, the concept is extremely simple: you pay for a server, and it hosts your website. You pay the same amount each month regardless of how many resources you use. Nowadays, you need to pay for what you used is an approach which is as controversial as it is innovative. Cloud hosting is all about usage-based billing. In other words, if you are used more server resources today than yesterday, you will pay more today. An eloquent example is represented by websites, which are subject to the dig effect every once in a while. Let us assume that your website receives 1,000 unique per day, but that it makes it to the dig front page once or twice per month. The result: a huge spike of traffic which takes its toll on the server.

The owner of such a website has a difficult decision to make: normally, a Virtual Private Server or even shared hosting is enough if you are only receiving 1,000 visitors daily. On the other hand, you can get in trouble if your websites receives sudden spikes of traffic.

Should you stick with your current plan and pay less? You could do that but what if your server goes down the minute you start receiving a lot of traffic from Dig? Would you be willing to let tens of thousands of visitor land on a page which does not load and never come back?

How much is that traffic worth to you? Should you upgrade to a dedicated server? Would not you be overpaying if you go dedicated just because you receive more traffic a few days per month?

Can anybody truly say that they want to pay to make money to work at home? No, of course not. That is not how providing for you and your family should work. You should be able to do what you do best and get paid for it. Well unfortunately that is not always the case.

Over the years I have searched and tried many online opportunities searching for a way to make money online while being able to make ends meet. Almost all of the programs that are available will charge you just to see what they are about. Many charge upwards of $100 or more. Now if their program really worked that well. And if their program was really that easy to do. And if they were really making tens of thousands of dollars per month. Why are they charging so much to get the word out? Why are they charging so much just for you to be able to start? That kind of thinking just doesn’t make any sense to me. Nor should it to you.

Now let me tell you about a completely legitimate, no fee, work at home job. Freebie Trading. Freebie trading has been around for many years and yet is still in it’s infancy when it comes to long time business standards. Basically what a new freebie trader does is complete trial offers for other traders and gets paid to do them. It’s that simple. But trial offers cost money and I said you could do this for free. Hmmm How can that be then? Well aside from the regular trial offers that can cost anywhere from $1 and up, there are also free offers, email submit offers, and surveys! True, you won’t make as much money doing all free offers, but you will make enough money to be able to start completing other trial offers where you will be paid anywhere from $20-$100 per credit. Now that is a real, good, legitimate income.

I bet you are wondering where do I go to get into this awesome opportunity? Well believe it or not, there are many places you could go to start that are just a few clicks away. My favorite forum to work on is CaliStyle 101. CS101 as we like to call it, is a freebie trading forum, run by and for freebie traders. So unlike other forums available, they have the freebie traders best interests in mind. CaliStyle 101 is not only free to join, but free to work on and use. CS101 is the best freebie trading forum around for several reasons.

1- Video tutorials that explain everything step by step in a way that even the most novice of computer users can understand.

2- ShoutBox to get any and all questions answered within a matter of seconds in most cases.

3- Friendly family-like atmosphere where everybody is there to help everybody else.

4- Perfect balance of information and games

5- Promos and Contests where you can make money just by being there!

If you are still wondering if there is a legitimate, no fee, work at home job available. Rest assured, there really is!

When building a personal budget, you have to cater to your own needs and situation. You can’t look at a general budget and decide it will work for you. Do you have an extra long commute to work? $100 per month on gas probably won’t work for you. Do you have a family of eight? $300 per month for food might feed half of you, but not the whole family.

If you are trying to design a good budget you need to follow some basic personal budgeting strategies. First, make sure you are recording all the money you make and that you are making the most that you can. Don’t just include your salary and think that tips, side jobs, overtime, or interest don’t matter. It is all money that you are spending.

Also, don’t give up on opportunities to make money, especially if you need it. Are you a teacher? Don’t pass up tutor opportunities. As a certified teacher, you can make a nice wad of cash in 30 to 60 minutes. As a business professional, do you get asked for advice a lot? If you are spending hours a week advising people, you should charge for it. You spent a lot of time, money, and effort to learn what you know, why should others get it for free?

Next, you should really examine all of your expenses. Write down every expense for 2 to 4 weeks. Don’t miss anything, no matter how small the expense. Analyze where you are spending your money. Anything that you could easily live without cut out, and anything that has a cheaper alternative, swap. Some people are very lenient where they cut back on expenses. Even if you aren’t in debt, you could save a lot of money to put away for retirement. You’d be surprised how much you can save.

Design a plan you can stick with. Don’t be so outrageous with your budget cutting out expenses that severely impede how you live. For example, if you think you can save $200 a month by not driving anywhere, but you have a 30 minute commute to work, well, you can figure it out. It’s not going to work. On the other hand, if you have tens of thousands of dollars in debt or more, you may seriously need to consider a downgrade on everything. If your rent or mortgage is too expensive, downgrade. You need to do whatever you can to secure your financial future.

Finally, stick with it. This is the most important part of keeping a budget. You have to stick with it! If something seems impossible to do, than modify it, but this doesn’t mean giving up entirely on the whole budget. Nobody said keeping to a budget would be easy. You just need to do it!

One of the most common frustrations I hear from business people is that they can’t write words that sell.

Put these same people face-to-face with a prospect, and they’re in their element. But put them in front of a computer screen and ask them to create the words for a compelling, tightly written ad or sales letter or brochure … and they freeze up.

True, there are very few professionals who can write in a way that moves people to action. Indeed, my own ‘baptism of fire’ in learning to write RESPONSE GENERATING copy was the direct marketing industry. Not only is direct marketing a totally accountable form of marketing where response rates can be measured to the decimal point, in many cases, it entails ‘selling off the page’.

In other words, you’re inviting prospects to put money in the mail or to call up with their credit card details to buy something, sight unseen.

NOTHING focuses you on good writing more than a challenge like that!

Yes, writing selling copy isn’t easy. But here’s the good news. When you learn the basic tools to move people through the written word, you’ll BLITZ your market and leave your competitors in your dust. You’ll have the power to bring sales and enquiries flowing into your business whenever you need them, like turning on a tap. And you’ll be able to do it in ANY business you run, manage or consult to.

Why IS ‘the written word’ such a powerful business weapon?

Think about those face-to-face encounters. How many places can you BE in during any one day? On a good day, you MIGHT get in front of four or five prospective clients.

But when you write compelling copy, you can engage THOUSANDS, or tens of thousands of people in a ‘conversation’ in a day. And guess what! Out of those thousands, only those who are QUALIFIED will ‘put their hand up’ and ask for your attention. These are people who want to buy.

When you’ve got people coming to YOU, you can say goodbye to cold calling. And YOU you control the transaction. Does that make sense?

To write compelling copy …

Start with Power Words

‘Power words’ give you an almost unfair advantage when you write.

John Caples, a member of the Advertising Hall of Fame, identified some fascinating ‘power words’ when he studied the top 100 headlines of his time. Of the 100 great headlines he analyzed, he discovered that certain ‘power words’ appeared over and over again:

You (or Your) – 45 times!

How – 12 times

New – 10 times

Who – 8 times

Money – 6 times

Of course, this is just a small selection of power words. But this tells you something! Why do you think the simple word ‘YOU’ appeared 45 times? Clearly, this word focuses on the reader. It forces the writer to write ‘through the eyes of the prospect’.

It’s known as the ‘Point-of-YOU’.

When you use the ‘Point-of-YOU’, it’s almost impossible to talk all about your yourself, your company or your product … you know the stuff … “We have a big factory”, “We are proud to announce …”, “Our product is so great …”.

Write in that self-focused way and your prospects will very quickly flip the page, hit the delete key, or toss your message in the rubbish bin.

Talk about THEM, and what THEY want … and you’ll rivet their attention! Can it be this simple?

I’ve had one client who attended one my workshops, who then re-wrote all his communications from a ‘Point-of-YOU’. He achieved a 5 TIMES increase in response. From nothing more than that one change in focus!

Think about that. He didn’t have to spend 5 times the advertising dollars. He didn’t have to hire more people. He simply re-positioned to a ‘Point-of-YOU’, and achieved a 500% increase in leads! What would doing that achieve for you?

26 Reasons Why People Buy

I could write a whole course on copywriting techniques. And in my program, ‘Write and Design your Own Ads, Sales Letters, Brochures, Flyers and Sales Presentations’, we do exactly that. We work though the powerful yet logical steps to re-writing your own copy with response generating techniques, so that you move people to act.

It’s a fun process, and once you ‘get it’, there will be NO stopping you. For now though, let’s look at another critical element in achieving effective communication … And that is WHY people BUY? The late and great Ed Mayer compiled these 26 reasons why people are motivated to buy:

* To make money

* To save money

* To save time

* To avoid effort

* To get more comfort

* To achieve greater cleanliness

* To attain better and fuller health

* To escape physical pain

* To gain praise

* To be popular

* To attract the opposite sex

* To conserve possessions

* To increase enjoyment

* To gratify curiosity

* To protect family

* To be in style

* To have or hold beautiful possessions

* To satisfy appetite

* To emulate others

* To avoid trouble

* To avoid criticism

* To be individual

* To protect reputation

* To take advantage of opportunities

* To have safety in buying something

* To make work easier

Some fairly primeval motivations there! Some we may not even readily admit to. But they ARE the things that drive us!

Now ask yourself, how compellingly does your collateral zero in on and develop one or more of those motivators? Or does your literature fall back into ‘we have a big factory’ mode?

If you’re going to MOVE people to action, you need to really get inside their heads, understand what their ‘buying drivers’ are, what their fears and uncertainties are, and their doubts … and address those compellingly.

When you do that, when you craft compelling copy into your message, that’s when you start to TAKE CONTROL of the market. That’s when people buy from you because you’ve inspired them, because you’ve inflamed their imaginations, and educated them that you’ve got what they WANT.

At this point, the focus goes OFF price and onto your value package. More about that another time.

In the meantime, do you think now might be a great time to do a ‘Point-of-YOU’ communications audit on your marketing collateral?

So you are thinking of buying a car from either a dealer or from a private individual. How do you know the car you are looking to buy is legit? Every year in the UK tens of thousands of cars are sold with a previous history that ends up costing the new owner a lot of money, stress and even the loss of their new car.

When you first look at a car you can find out a lot of information as long as you know what you are looking for. You have to know the right questions to ask and how to check certain things which could be an indicator of a car with previous history.

Unfortunately just checking a car is not always enough, even the most seasoned motorist can be fooled into thinking that they are buying a legitimate car. The only sure way to confirm if there is something suspect about a car is if you do a car registration check.

A car reg check can provide you will all the information you need to be able to make an informed decision about a car that you want to buy.

There is no way you can know certain things about a cars history by just looking at it. Even the person selling the car to you may not be aware of its previous history and maybe selling the car in all innocence.

Did you know for example that almost 1 in 7 of all cars that are registration checked are reported to have a different VIN number or vehicle identification number. You do not want to risk buying one of the half a million cars that are insurance write offs every year in the UK. As many as 4 in every 100 cars that the HPI check turn out to have previously been written off.

It is hard to believe that cars are brought and sold unknowingly by the buyer and sometimes the seller where the car is stolen or has outstanding finance.

A registration check on the car will prevent you from having to lose your money as stolen cars have to legally be returned to their legitimate owners.

Buying a car has become a minefield and you do not know whether the car has been cloned or clocked or cut and shut. There is believed to be as many as 1 in 12 vehicles that have some sort of discrepancy. If you buy one of these vehicles it could end up costing you thousands to fix or you could even end up losing your new vehicle or even end up being unwittingly entangled with the police if you are stopped with a suspect car.