As the U.S. economy declines,charitable giving declines with it. In these uncertain times many Americans face,loss of savings,long term unemployment and declining wages.

With money being harder to come by, American consumers have also changed their discretionary spending habits. Because of that many businesses both large and small have felt the crunch of declining sales and lower profits. Included in that crunch have been charities and non-profit organizations. Anyone who relies on charitable giving is feeling the pinch as both businesses and individuals have reigned in their donations and financial support.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the amount written off on tax returns attributed to charitable giving declined 10 percent in 2007. Charitable giving declined another 14 percent in 2008 according to the data, a far greater drop than had been anticipated or had been expected by experts.

The obvious reason for the decline is a simple lack of cash on hand. With Americans out of work or forced to survive on lower wages, charitable giving is often the first item chopped from the household budget. With houses losing value, and many individuals in their own financial distress, it is not a shock that the amount of charitable giving is in decline.

These IRS figures reflect only the approximately 75 per cent of taxpayers who itemize their deductions, and does not include people who donate cash at cash registers, churches, or other impulse donation sites. (Even those organizations have seen a drop off in the amount of cash-based charitable giving during high giving times of the year.) Furthermore, many individuals who are more affluent cannot write off the entirety of their charitable giving, which means they are only giving up to the amount they can write off. As a result, charitable trusts and grant providing non-profits have also reported a steep decline in the amounts of grants provided because of a loss in donors.

These organizations were also particularly affected by the roller coaster performances of the stock market during the recession. While working class Americans were seeing their 401Ks and pensions decline, charitable foundations, many of which are based on sizable endowments invested in the market, saw much of the growth experienced in previous years simply disappear.

While things have been dire for the past couple of years, directors of charities and non-profits see reason for long-term optimism. They cite the long-range nature of their organizational finances and the ability of the market to rebound. A return to a healthy economy would also presumably return some of the disposable income available for charitable giving. This means a better outlook for these nonprofits that have managed to hang on in the down times.

Another reason for optimism is the emergence of organizations that have combined consumer purchasing with charitable giving. With “necessity being the mother of invention,” several retail outlets have cropped up, particularly on the Internet, that have partnered with charities and non-profits to donate a portion of their revenues to these organizations. In this way, charity-conscious consumers can still buy the things they need and want and get the sense of reward associated with charitable giving.

As we enter a presidential election year, no doubt the economy and how to revive it will be front and center in the debates. Closely watching will be the directors of charities and non-profits eager to see the economy rebound, and with it, a return to the increased charitable giving they saw in years past. The millions of Americans who benefit from these organizations and the work they do will be watching as well.

Charitable giving is easy with Gifts that Give an organization that allows shoppers not only to fing great gift ideas and purchase high quality gifts for their friends and loved ones, but also gives them the opportunity to select a charitable cause to support. Visit them at http://www.giftsthatgive.com

Most online affiliate marketers have made hundreds, if not thousands of dollars simply by directing people to their merchant website to make a purchase. However, this does not happen for every affiliate marketer. In this article, you will learn what some successful affiliate marketer have done to get ahead of their competition.

An affiliate marketer must have the right perception on what the phrase “affiliate marketing” really means. The word “affiliate” is a definition that comes to most people quite easily as it means “a person, organisation or establishment associated with another. While people think of “marketing” in terms of knocking on doors, making of hundreds of phone calls or sending out thousands of emails.

Granted, you may be selling the same product or offering the same service as thousands of other online affiliate marketers. How you relate with your prospects with decide whether they will be repeat customers. The point is establish a relationship with your prospects.

So, how can you establish a relationship with your prospects? Before contacting your prospects, you must make sure you are targeting the right market. You can’t build a relationship with a prospect who has no interest in the product or service you are offering. Most affiliate marketers get discouraged when they don’t receive any response from their prospects. The problem is that, they have chosen the wrong market.

Provide your prospect with enough information. Your prospect may be looking for a solution to a problem or needs to make a buying decision. It is your job as an online affiliate marketer to provide them with the needed information. Provide your prospect with helpful and valuable content on your website so that they begin to trust you as an expert, instead of a fanciful “buy now” button.

Make your prospect to know that you are a real person. They may have read from your website how you lived from paycheck to paycheck and how you can now afford certain luxuries. Or how you were able to buy a car, pay off your credit card bills. That is not enough. Invite a dialogue with them. You can’t have a relationship with your prospect without open communication.

Let them know that they can contact you and ask you questions and when they do, be friendly but remain businesslike. When responding to your prospect question, you may throw in something about the weather you are experiencing. It may seem small and insignificant, but its huge. They will know that you are a real person and not just a faceless website or a black and white text of an email.

So, if you want to create a loyalty to your online affiliate marketing program, need to make sure to target the right market, provide your prospects with enough information and make your prospects know you are a real person by responding to their emails.

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And, if you’re looking to be more fruitful in both your professional and your private life, physical activity might be the simple answer you have been waiting for.

Here are five ways physical activity and business production work together to amplify your production:

1) Physical Activity = Additional Vitality

Researchers say dispensing energy by engaging in regular physical exercise may likely pay off with increased energy in the future. Indeed, studies have shown that physical exercise has a more significant effect on energy levels than stimulants. And it does not have to be a 5 mile run or 50 laps in the pool to realize this increase in energy. Taking a walk can create the energy lift and increase in productivity you are looking for.

2) Physical Activity Produces Success

Getting the blood moving through your veins, providing your lungs with oxygen and feeling your muscles work hard puts you in harmony with your body. It’s inspiring and each step you take, each pound you lose, each lap you swim or mile you mountain bike feels like an achievement. It helps you build a template of success, of regulating your life, overall health and well-being that translates into your professional and personal life.

3) Physical Activity Builds A Positive Mind-Set

physical movement has been demonstrated to generate feel-good hormones. When the above-mentioned hormones are coursing through your body, it is difficult to feel anything less than strong. You’ll have the positive outlook and confidence you need to propel through any assignment.

4) Physical Activity Reduces Tension

Physical activity and physical exercise has been confirmed to not only decrease stress but to help you, your brain and your body, respond better to stress. Stress can cause a substantial number of unhealthy byproducts including weakness, lack of sleep, sorrow, a damaged immune system, impatience, and a feeling of helplessness. Definitely not profitable emotions! Exercising helps your body react well to stress and in fact diminishes stress so you’re more efficient.

5) Physical Activity Brings Balance

Finally, physical exercise means you are making yourself a main concern. It helps you balance your life and a balanced life is a more productive life. Studies have shown that individuals who take time out of their day to put themselves first, even if it is only for a work out routine, are more productive, more efficient and better off.

There is a real explanation why getting active is so highly trumpeted. It’s because it definitely does work to relieve a number of issues, both mental and physical. If you’re feeling without energy and feeling unsuccessful, try including a dab of physical exercise to your daily routine, and watch your business production, and with any luck revenues, soar!

The settlement in this case highlights the FTC’s continuous efforts to crack down on privacy and data security violations regarding the collection, use, and security of personal information. This time the focus was on the use of toolbars as a collection vehicle, and the related takeaways are in the form of important new rules for the use of toolbars or similar software for collecting personal information.

The Toolbar

The defendant online service provides a membership program that permits its members to contribute to a savings account for college expenses. The contributions to the savings account are in the form of rebates and discounts from products and services purchased by members from participating merchant partners.

As part of its service to members, the service offers a software toolbar that is supposed to assist members in finding participating merchants based on online searches. Downloading and installing the toolbar is a default setting for members because in some instances the user is required to uncheck the toolbar option in order to opt out of the toolbar download.

Members using the toolbar are offered an “Enable Personalized Offers Option” for their browsers that enables the collection of information about the websites they visit for purposes of identifying participating merchants that provide eligible offers and discounts.

This toolbar and the privacy promises accompanying it are the basis of the FTC’s lawsuit against the membership service.

Privacy Policy Statements

The membership program’s privacy policy stated that that the toolbar might “infrequently” collect some personal information. In addition, the privacy policy stated that a filter would remove personal information prior to transmission.

Significant to the FTC were additional statements in the privacy policy apparently intended to create trust from members including:

* [We are] “committed to earning and keeping your trust”;

* “We understand the need for… personal information to remain secure”;

* “We have implemented policies and procedures designed to safeguard your information”; and

* “We protect your data by… SSL, Data, and Password protection technology….”

The FTC’s Allegations

The FTC alleges that the membership service engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices by:

* using a toolbar for the collection of personal information that exceeded the frequency and scope of the data collection promises by collecting extensive information including the names of all websites visited, all links clicked by the user and information that users entered into certain web pages, such as usernames, passwords, search terms, credit card information, expiration dates, security codes and social security numbers,

* transmitting data in clear text and thereby allowing third parties to easily intercept and steal data transmitted over the Internet,

* failing to disclose material facts to consumers regarding data collection and transfer practices, and

* failing to provide reasonable and appropriate security for the consumer information collected.

Conclusion – Important Settlement Takeaways

The settlement takeaways in this case are important for all Internet marketers that distribute toolbars or similar software (referred to by the FTC as “Targeting Tools”) for the collection of personal information.

Two settlement takeaways are noteworthy in terms of the FTC’s requirements for clear and prominent disclosures:

* timing – the disclosures must be before the installation of the toolbar or other similar software, and

* context – the disclosures must appear separately from any end user license agreement, privacy policy, terms of use page, or similar document; traditional disclosures in these documents are no longer sufficient standing alone.

Although the settlement does not mention “Privacy By Design” per se, the settlement takeaways listed above are consistent with the FTC’s commitment to this new approach to privacy first announced in the FTC’s Preliminary Staff Report issued in December, 2010.

This article is provided for educational and informative purposes only. This information does not constitute legal advice, and should not be construed as such.

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If you’re looking to make money from affiliate marketing of informational products, then the best thing that you can do is to create an effective and on target marketing strategy. A marketing strategy is different from marketing techniques, it’s more about who and how you do your marketing to make the most sales versus the channels that you use. Let’s take a look at what you can do to define and implement your marketing strategy:

Step 1. First off you need to identify and profile your ideal customer. This can be tricky if all you have to go on are some reports from Clickbank and Google Analytics. However, what you can do is to find out which country most of your sales are made in. Then you should also identify whether your products are appealing more to men or women. You should then be using this information to tailor your marketing material to meet the needs of these people. Also use Google Analytics to discover which answers your website is providing for web users. You may need to analyse which pages people are using a lot and how long they are staying on these pages to understand more about this.

Step 2. Find out more about what your customer wants. The best ways to interact with people who are buying your products through affiliate marketing is either through a web page that has a questionnaire on it, or alternatively social media provides an excellent place to interact with people. The answers that you get might be enough to convince you that another but similar product might sell better. The marketplace in Clickbank is always worth a visit every few weeks. This way you can stay up to date with any new products that have been released on the market as some may offer more value than others.

Step 3. Define your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). As part of your affiliate marketing strategy, you’ll need to understand why anybody would buy from you as opposed to all the other people who are offering the very same products. Understanding why and how your business differs from others will enable you to build upon this difference and make it part of your brand. You can quite often find out from some of your customers why they chose your products.

Step 4. Work on how you can deliver value as part of your marketing. What can you do that will give the customer more value? It might be that you decide to deliver useful information that will complement your informational products and help your customer learn more about related areas.

Step 5. Create your marketing plan. This is where the action takes place. This is all about how you can deliver your marketing strategy. You can now add in the different marketing techniques available to you such as Facebook, Twitter and blog posting. As part of the plan you’ll need to know how you are going to reach your target audience and you’ll also need to develop a content plan. The best businesses and affiliate marketing entrepreneurs have a clearly defined marketing strategy. Yes, it takes time to develop but the results that you can attain make it a very worthwhile investment.

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Mastering Internet marketing, though, can be a great way to increase and generate new business. There is no single correct method or strategy to use the internet for an Online marketing campaign, but past successes have shown that multiple channels are necessary to get a message across.

There is also no particular standard of Internet marketing, but the process might be best thought of as a series of tightly interconnected communication channels. Perhaps the most obvious is the website – a company’s website is something of a virtual storefront, and having that site linked to others is the equivalents of having other businesses generate walk-in traffic.

The next portion might be legitimate advertisement, usually through the form of banners and ads on other websites. These methods – also known as paid advertising – require monetary investments, and work in a manner similar to traditional print and television advertising. Another powerful method of Internet marketing is social media marketing, the 21st century alternative to word-of-mouth marketing. By properly leveraging social platforms, businesses have the opportunity to stay in contact with customers, receive instant feedback and roll out new initiatives without having to deal with the financial cost of a traditional ad campaign.

When these three methods are combined, businesses have a significant potential to generate revenue at a much lower price than is otherwise possible.

If you are a business owner and would like to implement an Internet marketing strategy, your first move should always be to research the competition. Make sure that you know and understand how others are successfully undertaking their own Internet marketing strategies, and try to follow in their footsteps.

Make sure you take notice of what works well and also what does not and never be afraid to take an innovated approach. Internet marketing has the potential to produce amazing results and furthermore carries far fewer costs than advertising in traditional media. With a little effort, you might find that your forays into the digital world meet with great success.

Taking action is a key aspect and a secret behind success in your online business. You can never know how far you can reach before you make the first stride. There are many potential online marketers, who only wish to start an online home business without taking the first step. Making money online is not all about wishing, but it involves having the desire as well as the power to start doing something and to stop the bad practice of procrastination. There is always the first step for any business you want to venture into. Victory begins with starting. Take action to start a business!

Take action to develop your online home business if you have already started it. Do not begin a business and relax. You will never benefit at all. It’s almost impossible to know how much you can gain from your business before you give it a try. You can only create a successful business by thinking about it and by performing some actions every day. Yes, it has to be every day no matter what you get yourself involved in. If you do not do something, then you are not a serious businessman or marketer. You are just in business but not working on it. There is no business that can thrive without every day input. You can never harvest where you haven’t sawn. Likewise, you can never earn money out of your online home business without taking action to do something every day.

Winning in your online home business requires you to do something. That’s when you can make a sensible amount of money. You should never first wait for everyone’s endorsement for you to move on. You should never wait to see others succeeding and you think of following them. That’s a behavior of people who don’t have an entrepreneurial heart and people who are not success-conscious. Remember that the power lies in your hands and in your mind to become an draftsman of success in your business and in your life. Will you take action?

Through experience, I have seen a good number of people, who only venture into a given business upon seeing others making a lot of money from the same business. They are not self-driven. They are only motivated upon seeing others earning some amounts of money from the very business they had originally ignored and were suspicious about making money from it. But chances are so cunning that such people do not get to notice them. By the time they get to know, it’s already too late. People, who procrastinate, hesitant and lazy tend to wake up to do things when it’s already too late. Begin your journey to wealth from your online business now. Take action to walk it slowly but gradually.

What should you do to take action? It’s easy. If you have affiliate products or programs you are marketing, you only have to know what is required of you to succeed in the business. Usually such information is given by the business for which you are promoting the products. With all the information at hand, you only have to market. Internet business is all about marketing. You have to market time and again. You have to do it every day and make each day a day of doing something beneficial to your business. Those small tasks you do when you write your business plan, when you write an article and submit it to other online directories, when you visit a forum and make posts there, when you work on optimizing your website, when you read to get new information and ways of doing business, when you advertize and when you do this and that to promote your site and your products, are some of the most important contributors to the growth of your business. Have an action to perform every day to grow your business.

As I conclude, I would like to remind you once again that taking action makes you become a victor. Each action you take is an inspiring factor upon achieving in it. People who do not take any action cannot be motivated by their actions because they are never there. You must develop the habit of doing something to be motivated by those small achievements that enable you to grow your business. Learn to take action!

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Writing SEO and content-based articles is a highly lucrative business opportunity for freelance writers today. Currently, lots of freelance writing gigs are available for copywriters with some SEO experience. Do you know what SEO really means to businesses? Well, most people are still unknowledgeable of SEO, an acronym that stands for search engine optimization. Put it simply, SEO content writing means writing articles to boost the online promotion of a particular firm, its services and products. Here we dig into more details about SEO writing and and more about freelance writers.

Is Content-Based SEO Needed?

SEO articles are primarily meant to improve traffic to websites. Search engines like Google crawl into sites if only they have rich content. SEO is an effort to publish more high quality articles and thus to increase the page rank of a website in search engines. Page rank indicates the position of a site in search results of a related keyword. Remember, visitors often don’t go beyond the first page of search results. So the link to the website of a business should come in the first page rather than the second. It is the duty of an SEO writer.Suppose, if a client is an online vendor of electronic gadgets, it will require lots of articles as product reviews, summaries, user experiences and others. SEO articles are expected to both educate readers about the products and also to lead link building campaigns. Both are highly important for the promotion of businesses on the web. The ultimate goal of an SEO freelance writer is to drag readers to the particular business’ homepage, where one can buy the products and services.

How About Freelance Writing’s Fit In This?

Freelance writing is a highly recommended job in employment field. Thanks to the growth of internet, writers needn’t to go to offices every day. They can just undertake huge number of projects available and work on them at their comfort in home or anywhere else. SEO writing is a new option for freelancers. If a writer has some experience in SEO articles, he/she won’t meet any short of work.For freelancers, it is quite easy to provide content for a number of SEO firms or clients at a time. Since there are lots of wiring gigs seeking SEO contents, writers can certainly sit down and find it a reliable option for living. Writing SEO articles is an entirely different thing when compared to the other kind of writings. The major goal in front of an SEO writer is to promote particular businesses, their products, services or website on the web. An SEO article should be included with a definite format, particular number of keywords, links and others. Most often, clients provide the keywords to be included in articles. Freelance writing is growing substantially and the more people that choose to be knowledgeable about freelance opportunities, the more it will assist those who need content.

Dave, a freelance writing professional, affiliate marketer and SEO specialist, infuses his knowledge of many different subjects into all of his writings and assists people with freelance SEO. His current initiative includes a website about freelance opportunities, where to find freelance work, and how to make freelance employment a career.

Marketing is one of many vital facets of a business entity. In fact, lack of success in your marketing department can lead to very poor turnover for your business, while proper marketing is one of the keys to achieving financial success. This attribute is so important to helping boost the efforts of the sales people by enlightening the target audience and causing awareness about your product or service. Therefore in order for your marketing enterprises to be successful and efficient, your promotions have to be done on various platforms to ensure that the message passed reaches the largest number of people possible of the target audience. This is where a marketing consultant team can come into play.

Marketing teams and consultants still have to ensure that the messages passed to their target audience are in a format which the target audience can easily understand. Marketing promotions can be done on newspapers, magazines, radio, T.V .and now various digitally based options. One of the best and most successful forms of marketing is through production of messages in a video format. The importance of video production in marketing is that the messages produced can be used on various platforms and are very illustrative and informative. Messages or information that is contained in video format can be used across the internet and on T.V, which are some of the most popular platforms that are able to reach out to a great number of people.

Due to this fact it is important that any internet marking consultant looks for high quality and professional video production services. Even though the process of video production for marketing may be expensive (compared to other forms), it is a sure way of reaching out to the masses in a direct and informative manner. This is so because once a video is uploaded onto the internet by an internet marketing consultant; it can be viewed by millions of people across the world at their own convenience. This also ensures that the message conveyed reaches out to the audience in a direct method as they are able to watch the video at the best time that they free to do so. This is in stark contrast compared to marketing on radio or T.V. that is given in a flash without even a care as to whether the audience has witnessed the message being passed.

Video production is also an important aspect in internet marketing based promotions due to the illustrative nature of adverts that are produced in video format. Compared to audio adverts or even printed ones, video combines both sound and picture creating a media that is very easy to understand within the shortest time. With professional video production services, an internet marketing consultant is able to attain high quality videos which will be more appealing to the audience, hence helping to boost the understanding and awareness of your product or services.

Said video productions will also boost the efforts of an internet marketing consultant with the inclusion of additional features that can assist in convincing the audience towards buying the product that is being promoted. A successful video production includes positive sentiments from customers who have used the product and other enhanced features that are important in convincing the audience to the quality of your product. With some creative magic, your video can not only entertain; it can inform and intrigue.

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And customers are the life blood of any business. Turn these away and wave goodbye to your conversion rates, profits and being in business itself.

The art and science of great copy
However this can be put right with the help of a professional copywriter, employed by an Internet marketing company or a freelancer. They will understand about the importance of great copy which will ensure that your site is easily found by the search engines and is ‘sticky’.

Customers first
Any copywriter worth their salt knows that it is important to write for your customers before the search engines. Whilst we know that copy is written for both of these the fact remains that it is people who read website content and then make a decision based upon the quality and persuasiveness of it.

If the content is well structured and has a nice, flowing style; talks about benefits rather than features and clearly points the customer in the direction you want them to go via a few calls to action then you are onto a winner.

As a business owner you want people to visit your site, be attracted to what is on offer and then make the decision to buy. But you need concise, professional content which speaks to the customer and clearly addresses their needs.

Content clangers

Your professionalism and reputation can be seriously affected if your website content contains any of the following:
• Spelling mistakes
• Poor use of grammar and punctuation
• Technical/business jargon
• Too much ‘management’ speak or overuse of marketing phrases.
• Long, rambling prose about the business rather than aimed at the customer.

And don’t forget content which is long and rambling, out of date or obviously stuffed with keywords!

Have a web content plan
Every business needs a web content plan. This plan will ensure that content is timely, accurate and matches the brand values of the business. This means content which has a consistent tone of voice throughout the site, is written in a conversational style, provides useful information and is easy on the eye.

Your aim is to hook those customers and keep them long enough to take some form of action, e.g. buy your products or services. You also want to promote your business, to establish your brand and ensure its longevity.

A professional copywriter will research your customer base before creating copy which understands and fulfils their needs.

Adaptive Consultancy is a London-based digital agency company specialising in website design, eCommerce, and internet marketing, including SEO, PPC and SMO. For more on digital agency London visit www.adaptiveconsultancy.com/