This is a guest post by our featured writer, Shirley Anderson.

Hold onto your hats folks, it’s going to be a busy Christmas selling season for online retailers. According to the BBC News Channel online, while brick and mortar businesses will experience a decrease in business, people who sell online are going to realize an increase.

Although it was a BBC site, their report covered the buying trends of both the U.K. and North America. The research firms whose information they sited predict a rise of a fifth to a quarter over last year’s Christmas sales in the States, with a 50% increase expected for our friends in the British Isles.

This is great news, especially for people who run online stores. To make it even better, people will, according to the report, spend more this year. The age range of the purchasers is between 45 and 54. I don’t know about you, but when I read that I immediately assumed that it was grandparents buying gifts for the grandkids. That’s okay. Grandma and Grandpa are expected to be big spenders this year, regardless of who they’re spending on.

Have you got your PayPal account all warmed up and ready to go? If you haven’t noticed the business building yet, it won’t be long now before the steady gains begin.

Once you have yourself prepared to be busy making some good sales, you might also want to rest up for the second Monday in December, which is the biggest selling day. Apparently, the public use their weekends to do offline comparison shopping, and then return to get all those last minute things ordered on Monday.

That’s not to say that a ton of items aren’t sought for online, because they are. One of Google’s top three keywords last December was, “Christmas”. Just plain, old Christmas. Good to know if you’re trying to optimize your site.

No matter how you look at it, if you’re an online retailer, the forecast looks rosy. Considering the current economic climate, that’s especially wonderful and perhaps unexpected news. Take the best advantage of it that you can.

Enjoy the business and resulting prosperity!

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Here’s the final tip I promised yesterday on making money online. Spy! Spy on yourself and others who are making waves in your niche. I’ll explain how and why you should be doing this.

About 2 years ago I had some issues with my aweber account, where people who opted in to receive my ezine started to hit the spam link on the emails I sent. Yea.. guess who? AOL users! Even though I clearly stated in each email the date they subscribed and included an unsubscribe link. Nope… why would they remember they subscribed in the first place? Long story short.. I posted a gripe about aweber. Less than 24 hrs after I made that post I was contacted by aweber!

Obviously aweber was tracking who were making comments about them.

So why spy?

- you get to know who’s speaking about you.

- if it’s something negative, you’ll get the chance to clear-the-air if necessary. As in my experience with aweber, they took the time to explain why I was getting accused of spamming and took the time to show me how to avoid this from happening in the future. They put out a fire before it spread and saved the image of their business.

- by spying on your competition or those in your niche you’ll know what they’re up to. Maybe it’s a blog post someone wrote about them, a new product launch or worst case.. they’re bad mouthing you.

- keep tabs on a company to know when they’re expanding so you can contact them in regards to vacant positions.

How do I go about spying?

The easiest way to start keeping track of things, is via Google Alerts. I’m sure there are many ways you can do keyword tracking, but this option is very simple to get started and it’s free.

Here’s how it works..

- enter a search term (this will be whatever you want to spy on)

- then chose where you want to search (Type). I normally use comprehensive.

- how often (I use as it happens)

- then enter your email address.

- you’ll then receive an email to confirm that you’ve requested the alerts. Confirm and you’re done.

Every time the word you entered is mentioned on the internet, you’ll get an email from Google Alerts showing the link where it was used. It’s that simple.

I’m sure you can find various other uses for Google Alerts.. like setting up alerts on companies that you can track to see when they start hiring. Or how about job titles.. “hiring virtual assistant” etc? Now bear in mind that the more broad your keywords are, there’s the chance that you’ll be flooded with irrelevant results.

Leave me your comments, maybe you have a better use for spying or a unique tool?

Are you tuned in to the Olympics? We’re a sporting family (some of us participate and others support) so we’re glued to the boob-tube every night. I’ll have some comments in another post about my thoughts on the Canadian team and their quest for “personal best”. Frig, Mongolia and Uzbekistan are on the medal table and not Canada. Nothing against either countries >> shaking my head from side to side <<

“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal”

If you’ve been reading you know that my VA quit a couple weeks ago and I’ve been searching for a couple replacements ever since then. It’s been hell. YOU CAN’T Grow if you’ve got to run the shop! Just when things were looking a bit better (tons of amazing applicants for the vacant positions), the PPC campaign I was testing and just getting ready to beef-up collapsed. Seems Facebook changed their rules and all the converting ads I had on there, were disapproved. Back to square1.

Yup the hammer fell again… with this being summer time and the beautiful hot weather we’ve been experiencing.. traffic is down across the board to most websites. Less traffic = less coins!

There’s NO ROOM for quitters!

So I jumped on my bike early this morning and headed out soon after Caron left for work. I needed the exercise and I had to clear my mind. But more importantly - I had to rethink my goals and set a new course of action for the remaining 5 months of the year. I had to get back on target.

It’s amazing how a 1 hour ride can clear things up for you! I came home with a new sense of drive and overall good feeling about myself. I know exactly how to approach the next 5 months! I then contacted and finalized the hiring of 2 new virtual assistants so within the next 7 days I should be back on track. Just a matter of training them and getting them up-to-speed on what we need to accomplish in order to grow this thing.

Do you set goals? Do you take time to track your progress and make necessary changes? Leave me your comments.

My strength lies solely in my tenacity. Louis Pasteur

It is surely not an impossible mission to drive traffic to a web site for the sake of business. That, in fact, is the easiest tasks of them all. As you provide your website information to the thousands of search engines, and hook the best keywords that identify your site; achieving high visitor quotas is simple! The hardest part is keeping those same visitors on your site, and converting them from visitors to customers; creating a good website design and strategy only means that you are about, three-quarters on the way to a successful website business. Converting those visitors is the last step to success. High-ratios are in the future for those who practice good techniques. The best part of it all is that your website does some work for you, as a cookie is sent to the browser along with the HTML page when someone visits your site, leaving a bit of helpful information for you, as to where the visitor spent most of their time and the least of their time. HINT: This is also helps you identify return visitors, as the cookie will identify them when they return to your site.

Here are some marketing programs that you can create from an analysis of stored cookies and email information:

Send reminder emails if a customer is bound to order the same item or service.

Send a postcard to customers who haven’t bought anything online in three months, offering a special deal or reward for shopping online. EXAMPLE: $10.00 off next online purchase.

Send an email with new promotions a few weeks later, after the customer has made their purchase. ALSO, send an email with new information about new products, services or design of the business.

Offer a chance to win something and make it easy for visitors who drop in to enter a contest to win a product or service.

Using these simple marketing tools you should be able to convert your visitors into customers in no-time at all. Make connections with your visitors, and make it easy for them to contact and connect with you, because building a relationship – professional, of course- with your clientele is the most crucial aspect of keeping them happy and as return customers!

This is a guest post from our featured writer, Giselle Rivera at http://www.eliteresumes.org

Does anyone know I exist?

Have you started a home based business? Are you waiting for the first phone order? Or the first client? If you have not compiled a marketing plan, you will wait by the phone for your first client for years! I can not emphasize enough, the critical factor played by marketing in the success of a business. It is the marketing of your company that targets your clients, grabs their attention and offers a service or product with the utmost high regards, and demonstrates a product or service’s quality over the competitors. Without the sole concept of marketing, a business will lack all elements needed for success. Marketing is the path to achieving high goals, as it will announce the opening of your business and the importance of your products. As small business owners are advised to create a business plan, in an effort to maintain a focus for the company, it is also advised that a marketing plan be implemented to increase sales and reach the target market that is needed for success. An effective marketing plan will result in higher sales, therefore there are a few elements that are vital in creating a successful marketing plan.

Step One: Situation Analysis - The first section of the marketing plan, like a business plan, defines your company, its products or services and demonstrates the benefits of your products/services oppose to your competitors. The situation analysis is also considered the SWAT analysis, in which you review the strength’s, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your company in a graphical display.

Step Two: Describe your target audience - Create a one paragraph profile of your prospective customer. This step will allow for a breakdown of your target market, as you will show the terms of demographics (age, sex, family status, earnings, and geographical location). If your business is a B2B (Business to Business) company, you will define the terms of the companies that will need and use your products/services.

Step Three: Define your marketing goals - Ask yourself, what is the overall goal of your marketing plan. What do you hope to achieve in efforts of establishing a marketing plan? For example, many companies establish marketing plans in efforts to increase sales by a certain percentage or increase sales of a specific product/service line.

Step Four: Establish the marketing communication strategies - The first three steps create in creating a marketing plan are to create a vision for your company’s expectations and goals, and in step four, you will allow yourself to establish various tactics in efforts of achieving the goals and expectations listed prior. These tactics include advertising, public relations, and even direct marketing. To complete this section, outline the tactics that you will enforce to achieve your goals. Then to identify your marketing mix, find out which media sources are preferred among your target market.

Step Five: Set a marketing budget - Do not use all of your revenue for marketing! Create a budget that your marketing aspect will have to abide by. This budget can be annual, monthly or bimonthly, depending on company preference.

Once you have established a marketing plan into your home based business, you have created a tool that will allow you to focus on a vital aspect of running a successful business, whether it is at an outside location or out of the comfort of your home. Marketing is essential and when it is done efficiently, the results yeild high expectations.

This is a guest post by one of our feature writer, Giselle Rivera - Eliteresumes.org