Bird Flu Watch Is Said to Focus On Wrong Area

The federal government has been looking in the wrong direction for signs that bird flu has arrived on the U.S. mainland, research suggests.
A study in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that birds flying north from Latin America are more likely to bring the H5N1 virus to the United States than are those migrating from Asia.
The United States' $29 million bird flu surveillance program has focused heavily on migratory birds flying from Asia to Alaska.
Yet those birds present a much lower risk than do migratory birds that come into contact with the hundreds of thousands of chickens imported each year to Central America and Mexico, said A. Marm Kilpatrick, lead author of the study.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery

South Korea Killing Dogs, Cats & Pigs to Prevent Spread of Bird Flu

Quarantine officials began the slaughter Tuesday even though international health experts have questioned killing non-poultry species to curtail bird flu's spread, saying there is no scientific evidence to suggest dogs, cats or pigs can pass the virus to humans.
Since ravaging Asia's poultry in late 2003, the H5N1 virus has killed at least 153 people worldwide. Infections among people have been traced to contact with infected birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans, leading to a human pandemic.
South Korean officials insist the decision to slaughter dogs, cats and pigs was not unusual and that the step has been taken in other countries without public knowledge.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Flu With Home Grocery Delivery

Bird flu Virus Now Mutating

Detailed data on clustered human cases of avian flu have experts agreeing that the H5N1 virus is evolving – but in what direction? “The virus is always changing, and the mutations that make it more compatible with human transmission may occur at any time,” warn Drs. Webster and Govorkova, both virologists at St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. However, another expert believes that, so far, H5N1 has given no indication it is mutating toward human-to-human transmission. “It’s far from a certainty,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical associate professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine, and author of Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic. “The virus could move closer to human-to - human transmission, and it could move farther away. I don’t think that you can conclude from these articles in the NEJM that the thing is becoming easier to transmit.” The two studies’ most basic data is not new. They focus on three clusters of H5N1 infection in Indonesia in mid-to-late 2005, involving four deaths, and an eight-patient cluster treated in the first weeks of 2006 at a hospital in far-eastern Turkey where four of the Turkish patients died.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Pandemics With Home Grocery Delivery

Washington Orders More Bird Flu Vaccine

WASHINGTON — The government ordered enough vaccine Monday to protect an additional 2.7 million people against bird flu, adding to a stockpile for use in an outbreak of the deadly virus.
The $199 million in contracts went to three companies _ Novartis AG, Sanofi-Pasteur and GlaxoSmithKline PLC _ for 5.3 million doses of vaccine. Two of the 90-microgram doses are required to vaccinate a single person against the deadly Asian bird flu known as H5N1.
When delivered, the newly ordered bird flu vaccines will roughly double the existing stockpile, which now has enough vaccine for about 3 million people. The government plans to eventually buy enough vaccine for 20 million people, including emergency and health care workers.
"Having a stockpile of influenza vaccine that may offer protection against the H5N1 virus is an important part of our pandemic influenza preparedness plan," said Mike Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Researchers are studying techniques that would reduce the amount of antigen _ the substance that prompts the body's immune system to respond to the virus _ in each vaccine. Using less of the active ingredient could stretch supplies and enable the vaccination of millions more people.
The bulk of Monday's order went to Sanofi-Pasteur for 3.7 million doses, under a $118 million contract.
The government said last week that some of the bird flu vaccine it stockpiled earlier is growing weaker with age. It's not known how long vaccines in the existing stockpile would remain viable.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Anything With Home Grocery Delivery

Scientist Cooperate To Prevent Bird Flu Pandemic

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A prominent Chinese health expert has called on scientists in Hong Kong and China to cooperate and conduct joint research to prevent a flu pandemic, a pro-Beijing newspaper reported.
The call comes after China's Ministry of Agriculture and Chinese scientists criticized scientists in Hong Kong and the United States in recent weeks for publishing a study saying that a new, vaccine-resistant strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus had emerged in China.
Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory disease expert based in China's southern Guangdong province, told the Ta Kung Pao newspaper that both sides must communicate.
"China and Hong Kong are one family and they may be facing a dangerous co-explosion of the common flu and avian flu in coming days. I hope there can be more co-ordination, sharing of information in the future," he told the newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive and Stay Alive with Home Grocery Delivery

Potential human pandemic- H5N1 Bird Flu

Health professionals are concerned that the continued, rapid spread of the highly pathogenic avian H5N1 virus across eastern Asia and other countries represents a significant threat to human health. The H5N1 virus has raised concerns about a potential human pandemic because:

It is especially virulent and has caused severe disease in humans who have become infected

There has already been limited human-to-human transmission in Southeast Asia

It could evolve to become readily transmissible in humans

No human H5N1 vaccine is commercially available, despite continual advances in vaccine technology

Supplies of expensive antiviral medicines are very limited

Save Gas/Time/Money - Survive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery

As journalist Galen McBride summed it up for Pandemic Flu Awareness Week (Oct. 9-15), "A pandemic will occur if the H5N1 avian flu virus, currently circulating in more than 50 countries on three continents, mutates to acquire the ability to transmit efficiently from human to human. Flu viruses mutate millions of times a day and this virus has already achieved limited human-to-human (H2H) transmission as acknowledged by the World Health Organization (WHO)."

New Bird Flu Strain Spreads Quickly!

A new bird flu strain has emerged in China and is spreading quickly. This is very Serious.
The spread is rapidly plowing through poultry in Southeast Asia.Human infections caused by this new strain have also turned up in many different locations. These include farms, urban centers, etc. This raises fears that a worldwide flu pandemic could occur and kill millions.
The new strain is vaccine-sensitive. This means that existing animal vaccines are less effective against it.
"This virus seemed to spread very fast over a big geographic region," said Yi Guan, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong in China.
"However, we don't have any evidence to show whether this virus is more dangerous or less dangerous than any other H5N1 [bird flu] viruses," Guan said.

Save Gas/Time/Money - Survive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery

Earlier bird flu vaccine 'causes new strain'

Ironically, it may have been a vaccine that was used to protect poultry from earlier types of the H5N1 flu that led to the virus' evolution.
The new variant has become the primary version of bird flu in several provinces of China and has spread to Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand, according to a report published in the latest issue of Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences.
It is being called H5N1 Fujian-like, to distinguish it from earlier Hong Kong and Vietnam variants.
'We don't know what is driving this,' report co-author Dr Robert G Webster of St Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, said.
It may be a good idea NOW...
To avoid the lines at the grocery stores even just because of the holidays you may want to look into buying your groceries online and stocking up on flu meds for the busy flu season ahead. It can be used even for the regular flu and you can get it online by going to:

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery -Sign Up Now

Fall Brings Migratory Birds Across US Waterways

Now is the time for wild birds to begin migrating south for the winter and so we see flocks of geese and ducks flying over waterways all over the US.
The world watches and waits to see what this new bird migration will bring.
I tend to err on the side of caution and believe it's better to be prepared then to wait till there's a pandemic and people panicking all over the place. To avoid the lines at the grocery stores even just because of the holidays you may want to look into buying your groceries online and stocking up on flu meds for the busy flu season ahead.

Many Actually Survive Bird Flu

Cont'd from previous days post...

Lee actually survived it all. Although he “started” the Bird Flu pandemic, he also helped “end” it. Doctors used his blood to find the initial vaccine. Since Lee was also now immune, he not only volunteered to help where he could and also founded the World Association of Sensible Hygiene (WASH). More importantly, Lee and others like him helped disrupted societies regain their faith and hope and love. Since this was pandemic number 11 in the last 300 years, history had taught that it was inevitable that individuals and communities and countries would bounce back fairly quickly. But a bitter question remained. Would Lee and the rest of the world be better prepared for the next pandemic? Lee wondered that too as he bordered the wide-body Airbus destined for Mexico City.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery - Sign Up Now

The First Wave of the Bird Flu Pandemic

Before the Bird Flu gets here Cont'd from previous days post...The Waves The first wave of the Bird Flu pandemic was over in three months time but not the shock. Bacterial disease such as cholera multiplied rapidly with catastrophic results across Africa and Asia. The longer-term, global recession began with the realization that supply-lines, manufacturing and food-production chains were desperately weakened through labor loss. Medical facilities were terribly understaffed. As usual, the poor had little chance of aid at all. And then came the second wave of Avian flu. It took over a year before the waves of sickness and death became controllable.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Anything With Home Grocery Delivery - Sign Up Now

The Controversy over Bird Flu

Cont'd from previous days post...

The Controversy
Local governments and health organizations began to squabble over who had the power to do what. The question was of legalities: who would control distribution of anti-viral drugs for the Bird Flu and who would receive those drugs? Army barracks received attention but prisoners were ignored. Families with pets were labeled as ‘higher risk’ groups but no-one knew if these families should receive more help or less. As in-fighting became more severe, decision processing became more difficult. Who should give the daily press briefings? Who would organize mass cremation? Who would facilitate conferences for global medical meetings? The list grew rapidly.

To be Cont'd.

Save Gas/Time/MoneySurvive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery -Sign Up Now

Cities Shut down by Bird Flu

Cont'd from previous days post...

The Short-term Havoc

Rumors and half-truths began to circulate causing public outcry and protests. Because the protests only helped spread the flu, quarantines were set in place. The public was told to stay at home indefinitely. Vibrant cities screeched to a halt as public transport shut down. Streets stank as garbage piled up. Shops were looted and in some cases those caught coughing were stoned. Safety services (fire, police, ambulance) were disrupted, fires burned out of control. Cross-border travel was curtailed killing tourism and all international sports events were cancelled. Food imports were banned creating shortages of meat, vegetables and wheat. Folk with chronic medical illnesses couldn’t get their medications. Soap and disinfectants – perhaps the simplest and most effective fight against the spread of disease – were in short supply; no one had thought to stock-pile soap.
To be Cont'd.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive With Home Grocery Delivery -Sign Up Now

Public Nervous About Bird Flu

Cont'd from previous days post...

It wasn’t long before Lee was put on a respirator in quarantine. It also wasn’t long before the media found out Lee had Bird Flu. The public became nervous. The number of flu patients – real or imaginary – multiplied dramatically but nurses and hospital staff were strangely missing … using overdue holiday time or just not showing up for work at all. It was announced that schools, restaurants, and non-essential businesses would be closed. No deadline was given – no one knew for sure how long the measures would have to be in place.

The Public Announcement
Wisely, the public was advised to stock up on food and water. Newspapers advised people to stock up on toothpaste, toilet paper and treasure (cash). People were told to shop at off-peak hours and public transport was ordered to run 24 hours per day. But despite warnings to the contrary, doctor’s offices, hospitals and clinics were overrun. Faces masked in paper waited for hours in front of pharmacies in hope of getting relief. Despite clear instructions from health officials, panic broke out as folk finally fathomed that at best only one third of the population had access to anti-viral drugs. In rural areas and smaller towns, there wasn’t any chance at all.

To be Cont'd.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery - Sign Up Now

Bird Flu Infected Passengers on Plane

This is a continuation of the previous days story-it is a fictional account of the spread of Bird Flu starting with one traveling business man.

Lee was not the only one in this fight. Infected passengers from Lee’s plane from Hong Kong had connecting flights to major cities in most continents. The global executives Lee had addressed at the office had also flown home diseased. Sadly, some of the medical staff where Lee was diagnosed had also caught it not to mention the crowds Lee had interacted with at concerts, restaurants and on shopping sprees. The so-called Bird Flu or Avian Influenza had indeed spread its wings. It was the start of the first flu pandemic of the 21st century.
The News

Had Lee or any of the others known in time, they would have taken anti-viral drugs hoping to block or at least slow down the replication of the virus. At least the severity of some symptoms might have been eased not to mention a reduction in the duration of sickness. But time had run out - anti-viral medication needed to be taken within 48 hours of the first stages of the disease.

To be Cont'd.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive the Flu With Home Grocery Delivery - Sign Up Now

Was the Diagnosis Bird Flu?

Was The Diagnosis Bird FLu?

Lee was exhausted. He had a cough, scratchy throat, runny nose and muscle aches. A fever started but it wasn’t until Lee began having difficulties breathing that he decided to get help.

Doctors huddled in subdued discussion. Experts were rushed in. It was finally determined that Lee’s body was fighting strenuously against two viruses. Lee had caught a highly infectious Influenza A virus – a flu bug. However, at much the same time he had also picked up a second virus called H5N1. The two viruses had mixed their genes and formed a hybrid. Since this was now a radically new pathogen, Lee had no immunity to it.

To be Cont'd.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Pandemix With Home Grocery Delivery -Sign Up Now

How the Bird Flu Pandemic May Spread

Just how do influenza pandemics break out and what can we expect from the H5N1 or avian flu version? What might the short and long term consequences look like? Here is a Bird Flu scenario based on historical facts and well-educated guesses from experts. Be aware and Before the Bird Flu gets here prepare. Lee tried to stifle a sneeze but couldn’t. Invisible to the naked eye, a cloud of almost five thousand virus-filled droplets launched into the air at some 150 km/ hour or roughly 100 mph. Some passengers in the wide-body Airbus frowned. The Hong Kong to London flight was long and no one wanted to catch a cold.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Anything With Home Grocery Delivery -Sign Up Now

Lee planned to fill every waking moment of his stay in London. A concert at the Millennium Dome, dinners at some of the finest hotels, shopping in crowded malls – "What a chance," Lee thought. All he had to concentrate on was a few hours in front of the International Board. It was his job to present sales trends in China to the bosses who were also winging it towards Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports. "The global executives will get only good news from me," figured Lee. "Pity I don’t feel better …"to be continued....

More Thoughts on How Bird Flu May Change Our Lives

There were a few things I left out of my previous Bird Flu article that I remembered later that may effect many of us to some extent. When traveling some of us may want to wear masks while on airplanes, bus terminals, waiting rooms, hotel lobbies-this happened with SARS remember-it was commonplace during that time to see everyone wearing masks in the countries that were affected.
I think that the initial immediate losers would be airlines, luxury goods, hotels, travel industry. And the winners would be the pharmaceutical industry, biotechs, especially those who were working on the development of vaccines, hospitals and cleaning supply companies and medical supply companies.
You will see investors moving more into the bond market as a safe haven and out of the equity markets.

Save Gas/Time/Money Survive Bird Flu With Home Grocery Delivery -Sign Up Now

Thanks for visiting my internet advertising website - Ann

The New Economy Under Bird Flu

There will come a time when bird flu will enter this country and it will affect the way we do everything. At first it will cause a panic that will make people scramble to stock up on medical supplies like masks and gloves and set aside groceries for survival. Then as people settle into the idea of still having to go to work and make a living there will be a re-emergence of interest in doing things online. I am hoping that people will cut back on driving to their offices and put more effort into learning how to email files to each other for updates and using email more for communication. Emailing invoices instead of postal mailing them. Paying bills online more because that will be thought of as more reliable as our postal workers are affected.
Grocery shopping online will see an upswing.
Sit down type restaurants and bars will see their business slow down alot as people will be eating at home more, or only ordering food to go as it is served single service. The single service sector will see an upswing because disposable cups, plates and such will be considered safer.
These are just a few of the industries that you will see changes in as we adjust to less social contact. People will consider staying at home more and doing more things at home such as gardening and home improvement.
I also predict that it will cause gas prices to rise so much that it will pressure people into working from home more online and employers will try harder to accomodate them than they are now.
These are just a few of the things we can look forward to and you will be ahead of the game if you can steer your life in that direction ahead of time so that it isn't such a strain when the time comes. Start off by looking at what you do now, ask yourself what things can you can change to use less gas and that you can you do from home?
I hope this article gets people to thinking about how they can make their life easier in the future by taking action now.
Thanks for visiting my Internet Advertising blog.
Ann Menke

Using RSS Feeds to Promote Your Website

Almost ANY web based content can be transformed into an RSS feed. The only real requirement is that the information changes regularly.
Typically, the main use of RSS is to present headlines and a short introduction to "newsy" stories. Create an RSS feed on your site featuring your company press releases, site updates, etc.
I do this using blogger and then put a link to my RSS feed on my Internet Advertising Website.
You can see the little RSS button to the right of the link to this blog on the above page. You can ask your website developer to put a link to your blog and RSS feed on your site or do it yourself.
You can use your RSS feed to announce Upcoming Events, thoughts and commentary, opinions, articles, introducing new products, monthly specials, newsletters and to tell people about new pages you have added to your site.
Once you've got your feed going... remember to submit your feed URLs to the various RSS Feed Directories.

If you would like to have me create an RSS feed to help promote your website please visit my Internet Advertising Website
Thanks, Ann Menke

What Happens When you Quit Blogging

Recently I had a customer that wanted me to quit blogging about his dump trailers because he thought he could do it himself. Well he still hasn't created one sentence so it seems his website is now falling down on the search engines. This just goes to show you how important it is to have fresh new content pointing to your site. I told him he had better get started on it or have me do his blogging for him or he was going to lose all the search engines real estate we had worked so hard to cover. Meaning it is an uphill battle to get up on the tops of the search engines and once you are there on the first page of a search you need to continue to keep on doing what you are doing or you will very quickly fall back down again. Recently I decided to start my own blog about used heavy equipment since I also do quite well selling that aside from my website creation and internet advertising business. So if you would like to see a fresh new blog that I just started then please visit My Used Heavy Equipment blog. And if you need help with your own blog I only charge $10 per paragraph per day to get started and can teach you how to do it yourself by following my example.
Thanks for visiting my internet advertising blog - Ann Menke

Using a Blog as a 2nd Website for One Way Links

I have been blogging for my customer Maxi Dump about dump trailers and added pictures on the left hand side of the blog going to different pages of their website. Adding thumbnails on your own blog with links going to your website is a great way to get more traffic to your site because they are all one way links. Be sure to label your images to give the search engines more keywords to look at. You can label them using the alt and title tags as well as by putting names under your images. If you don't know how to blog I can do that for you for $10 per paragraph per day and also add image links to your blog for only $5 per image. You email me the images and I crop and resize them to fit then add the proper html to your blog template. To see what I am talking about go to Maxi Dumps Blog. For internet advertising advice please see
How To Improve Your Website for the Search Engines.
Thanks for visiting my blog - Ann Menke

Save Gas by Finding Ways to Work From Home

I am the envy of my many friends and relatives that must commute to work every day and with gas prices going up I can gloat even more. I have told them for years to find ways for their employers to let them work from home. Many of them work on computers too but for some reason their jobs are slow to turn to telecommuting. It's been around for ages but it's taken me years just to get my own customers used to doing email rather than calling me. If they want to see me in person they can learn to use instant messenger and see me on my webcam. After a few times of that entertainment they get used to just chatting with it. Most work that is done in an office can be done from home-if people would just put the effort forth to make it happen. You can have paper files Fedexed to you to work on if they can't be emailed to you or disks mailed to you. I get Fedex packages all the time with work from my customers-mostly because they don't know how to email a file they already have on their computer. With the bird flu approaching more and more companies are going to seriously think about ways their employees can work from home. Now is the time to find ways for more people to do their work from home - not when they are too sick to come in or helping a loved one that is. I just heard on the news that some companies are preparing for this eventuality-so now is the time to mention telecommuting to the boss-he doesn't have to know it's because you just want to save on gas.
If you want to know more about "How to Improve your Website Performance" or just need a new website then contact me at info@a1aweb.com.
Thanks for visiting my Internet Advertising Blog - Ann Menke

Cheap Local Advertising in Cinemas

Advertising at the Movies: Finally, here's one that often gets overlooked. If you turn up to the cinema early, you might have seen that before the big-budget ads, ads for local businesses are run. This can be a great place to advertise relatively inexpensively in quite a high-profile way, and it has been found to work especially well for takeaway food businesses.
With the myriad of different types of advertising it is hard to figure out what is the best place to start so if you need a little free advice about how to advertise your website be sure to drop me a line so I can point you in the right direction. You may also want to visit my page about "How to Improve Your Websites Performance".
Thanks for visiting my internet advertising blog - Ann Menke

Website Advertising on Billboards

Website Advertising on Billboards: Here's one that gets overlooked pretty often, but can be very effective if you do it right. Billboard ads are relatively expensive, but they do generally stay up for a long time, and they can be very specifically targeted to an area -- the one where they're physically located. You'll have the best results with this if you can put one near enough to your business that it could say 'turn left at the next junction', or something like that. Phone numbers are, again, pretty useless, although you could have some luck putting a website address up there.
Think of the many other advertising possibilites for your website: Skywriting, Airplane Banners, Hot Air Balloons - that could be a fun business expense.
OK-let's not get too crazy just yet-start off with your website address on your brochures, letterhead and business cards.
If you need help promoting your website please visit Improving Your Websites Performance
Thanks for visiting my Internet Advertising Blog - Ann Menke

Advertising your Website on Television

Have you noticed that almost every company that advertises on television has a website that they flash up on the screeen at the end of the ad? Have you thought about "Advertising on Television"? Unless your business is getting pretty big, this would be quite a bad idea. You'd have trouble producing and airing an ad even on local cable channels for less than $10,000. Of course, if there's a market for your product and you've got the budget for this, you could take a gamble and make a mint. The home businesses that tend to do best out of TV ads are ones that have a 'unique and useful invention' product with easy-to-demonstrate benefits -- think infomercial. Research shows that you can sell almost anything given a 60-second ad, a free phone number and a price point of $19.95.
In some markets advertising on TV is quite reasonable locally but be sure to mention your website in your ad. It is unbeleivable the number of big business owners that forget to do this. Mention your website on everything you have your company name printed on. Sometimes people are more apt to go to a website before they even call you on the phone because they don't want to have to deal with salespeople or being put on hold.
If you need help with your advertising online please contact me or visit my internet advertising website. - Thanks for reading my blog - Ann Menke

Ways to Advertise Your Website

To continue my discussion about other types of advertising to day I will talk about advertising on the Radio: Wherever you are, the chances are that there's a local radio station. Once your home business grows to a decent size, you might consider buying some time on it.
Really, though, the only kind of home business that can benefit enough from radio ads to justify the cost is one that has anything to do with cars. Since radio is almost entirely limited to use as in-car entertainment now, you know that almost everyone your ad reaches will be a car-owner, and so might be interested in what you're offering. If you offer something that people need cheaply or even for free, you can get a big response.
Unfortunately, that response could be a little too big -- thanks to the time-sensitivity of radio, you'll get mobbed the next day, and then everyone will forget you again. Radio advertising offers the listener no opportunity to keep your ad and refer to it later, or to find it again in the future. You will find that any ads involving a phone number are spectacularly useless. It does help of course to repeat your website address at least 3 times in the ad in the hope they will write it down or remember it.
More to come tommorrow about ways to advertise your website.
If you need more website advertising advice please contact Ann Menke

Advertising Your Website Offline

The media is a powerful thing -- the average person spends an enormous amount of their life consuming it in one form or another, and will spend a significant percentage of that time looking at, listening to or watching advertisements. If you want to use the power of the media, though, you need to know what you're doing otherwise your investment will be a financial disaster. Listed below are the most common forms of media advertising. No doubt you can think of others as well.
Advertising in Newspapers and Magazines:There are two kinds of advertising you can get in newspapers and magazines: classified and display. Classifieds are the small ads towards the back of the publication, while display ads can be almost any size, from a small corner of a page to a massive double-page spread.
I like putting classified ads in local papers with just a website address such as: Used Heavy Equipment at floridaearthmovers.com, Semis, Boats, Motorcycles. It is a very cheap way to advertise and gets enough hits to justify using it from time to time.
Look at your local penneysaver or hometown paper and see if a little local ad can't add some hits to your website.
More about these other forms of advertising tommorrow:
Radio, Television, Billboards, Movies, the list goes on.
Thanks for visiting my website advertising blog -Ann Menke

Writing for the Internet

It`s a well-known fact: Large blocks of copy are intimidating and will often send people running for the hills or at least the Delete button. The solution? Break up paragraphs into two to four sentences. Use several subheadings throughout your emails and newsletters. And use asterisks, dashes, and ellipses (...) to give your copy more rhythm. Bullet points are excellent eye-catchers - use them whenever appropriate.

To convince people to buy your product or service, you must make them believe that your offer is credible and that you (or your product) will deliver as promised.
How do you do that?
Here are three ways you can buildcredibility with the readers of your sales letter:
- Provide testimonials.
- Include endorsement letters from authority figures in yourindustry
- Make your offer and promises sincere and believable.

If you need help writing ad copy or creating a newsletter for your website please email me and I will tell you what I can do to help.
Thankyou for visiting my website advertising blog - Ann Menke

Free Places to Advertise Your Website

There are lots of free places to advertise. Here are a few that I use quite a bit to sell used heavy equipment. When you open a new account you can put two free ads in the http://www.truckpaper.com Be sure to put your website address in the description of your ads.
For used Antique Tractors and Equipment try YTMag.com-they only allow one picture though.
You can post as many ads as you like with lots of pictures at http://used-heavyequipment.com and let's not forget one of the biggest free advertising sites on the internet http://www.craigslist.org.
Of course be sure not to abuse these sites and follow their policies. It's also a good idea only to place ads on craigslist that are close to home if it is a vehicle you are advertising as most people won't travel very far to look at it seems. But I have been wrong about that before as I recently shipped a Kenworth semi truck to Italy so your buyers can come from very far away.
I even shipped a Mack truck and dump truck to Africa last year.
I hope these links come in handy for you - thanks for visiting my internet advertising blog - Ann Menke

Writing Good Ad Copy

Sit down and write every conceivable benefit your product has. Don`t know the difference between features andbenefits? Features describe the product; benefits describe the results of using the product. Features appeal to logic...logic justifies emotion...emotion drives sales. Here`s a rule of thumb for benefits: ask yourself "What can my product or service do for my customer?" Then begin to write your letter telling your reader WHAT`S IN IT FOR THEM.
Tell them how much better life will be for them after they buy from you. Tell them how much better they`ll feel. Tell them how their peers will respect them more.
AN EMOTIONAL APPEAL
When promoting anything to anybody, you must remember that buying decisions are based upon emotion and later backed up by logic. Before you write a single word, determine what emotional hot buttons you need to push to "jumpstart" your prospect. Selling dump trailers? and at a loss for words? Go for the "fear of disaster" button with "Making Hurricane Cleanup Easier." Selling political bumper stickers? Hit the "anger" button with: "Let the President Know What You Think of His Policies." Other buttons include: curiosity, greed, ego, vanity, hope and/or fear of scarcity or security.
Check back tommorrow for how you can make your product appear more credible.
Thanks for visiting my Internet Advertising Blog - Ann Menke

Writing Newsletters that Get People to ReVisit Your Site

Having a webpage alone is not enough - one of two things will happen: the sale is closed or the prospect will leave the page and never return. That is why you need to send out newsletters to people who have visited your site. By placing a simple email box on the front page so they can sign up for your newsletter you are building an email database. Yes it is good to have a contact form but some people don't like filling out long forms. So keep it simple and just ask for an email address on the front page of your site. Then when you send them a newsletter that contains useful information at no cost into their inbox at periods specified by you, you will remind them of the product they thought they might want later, and often this will prompt them to revisit your site or call you. Be sure your newsletters content is directed toward the specific reasons to buy the product, but doesn't come across as "sales pitch". Fact filled uses for a product and ways that the product will make life better and more enjoyable; these are the points on which to focus. Be sure you include a compelling subject line in the email and don't use the word "free" because some of the older spam filters will cause your mail to be dumped into the junk mail box before anyone reads it. Convince the reader who signed up for your free newsletter that they simply can't live without your product! Offer up a few testimonials in it or a link to your happy customers page. Prompt them to revisit your site by giving them an easily clickable link in the text of your newsletter. If you need help creating a monthly newsletter to help get more visitors to your site-A1AWEB Internet Advertising can do that for you. To see an example of a blog newsletter I created for Maxi Dump go to Dump Trailers and Utility Trailers.
Thanks for visiting my blog - Ann Menke

Advertising is an Expense that Increases the Value of your Business

Do you cringe at the thought of spending more and more money to advertise your business, product or service each month? If you can change the way you look at advertising costs and change the way you advertise your business will grow beyond your wildest dreams. As a small business owner, you should always be looking for ways to cut expenses and increase revenue. Expenses are anything that is required for your business to function. This can include web site hosting, copywriting or ghost writer fees, office rent and utilities, payment processing fees and even payroll for your office staff. Anything that is designed to bring in sales or leads (and is measurable) is not an expense. Measurable, trackable advertising costs and sales force commissions and salaries are not expenses. These costs are an investment in your business and your future. Measurable advertising that is designed to produce a certain measurable action is referred to as "direct response marketing". Advertising dollars spent on directing a targeted audience to respond via a web site, email address or a special phone number is always an investment, not an expense.
For a home business or small business, it is not always practical to try and "get your name out" to your target audience (known as "branding") by spending thousands and thousands of dollars. A more effective way to advertise would be to run ads that attract the attention of your target audience and entice them to perform "your most desired action". The desired action may be to visit a product web site, which could result in an immediate sale. A heavy equipment business for example that considers advertising an investment would make sure that the desired action at their web site is to collect lead information above all else. That web site could make some sales, but a mechanism to capture personal contact information of interested visitors will generate many more qualified leads. Through follow up contact, these leads could produce many more sales over time than the initial visit to the web site would. Another desired action in your ad could be for the prospect to call a phone number for more information. They would give the phone person their mailing address (to receive a promotional package) and their phone number (that a sales person would use to contact them).
If you are thinking of investing more in your business and need more help with online advertising please contact Ann Menke

Use Keywords in your Anchor Text

When doing link exchanges make sure you are using keywords in your anchor text. That is the text that shows up right after your URL. It is the title of your link. Rather than using your company name which most people will not know to search for use the most important 2 word phrase that you feel people would type in when doing a search for what it is you are selling. For instance if you are selling dump trailers you would use the words "dump trailers" as the title to your link or which is also called your anchor text. Here is an example of a well written link exchange:
"Dump Trailers - from Maxi Dump come in many different types and sizes and can be pulled by most heavy duty pickup trucks." As you can see I used the word dump trailers as the anchor text. You can also use other 2 -3 word phrases for this type of site such as Trailer Dumps, gooseneck dump trailers, small dump trailers, etc. In case you are wondering how to create a link exchange page for your site you can see an example of a well made link exchange page here.
Thanks for visiting my Search Engine Optimization Blog - Ann Menke

Search Engines are Getting Smarter-Are You?

As search engines gets smarter, tricks get cheaper and we get nearer to coming full circle to an original goal of Internet search: that website content is, indeed, king. It cuts across the grain of some notions we've held in the industry for some time, that there are shortcuts aplenty in the hunt for better search engine rankings. A1AWEB Internet Advertising discourages customers from thinking that they can or should fool Google and Yahoo. Instead, I show you solid methods that work. Above all else, your website needs superior content that anchors your search engine optimization strategy.
Algorithmic innovation, much of it by Google's engineers, has thankfully rendered search engine spamming a fruitless endeavor. This has made the search engine a far greater tool for us to use and, in turn, has sparked the online advertising industry.
Nevertheless, Google and other search engines closely guard their Search secrets. Their constant tweaking compels smart webmasters to not rely on keyword strategy alone. Your site must be prepared to weather the ensuing fallout from any change in web-crawler browsing instigated by their engineers in those far-off, unseen laboratories.
Search engines take link relevancy into account when ranking webpages.
Your white hat optimization plan means shoring up whatever online relationships you can with other sites for link exchange, promoting your site with new ones for more link exchange, and joining web directories. This is not an instantaneous process, it takes time to optimize a site for the search engines- but it is indispensable for your long-term online planning.
The focus is now on content. Content requires actual work, anathema, perhaps, to those seeking quick rewards with no effort, but this work pays off. You need to produce fresh, relevant content that - gulp - someone might even want to read!
I've yet to hear of a web crawling spider that purchases anything online. Until this starts happening, you should start writing (or rewriting) your website's content with an ideal reader in mind: your customer. For instance, if you're marketing dump trailers, describe each trailer individually, Be genuine.
State the aim of your site's business by using clear and direct language early in your text, or "up there" on the page. Indirectness or misleading intros may not only divert the attention of people and cause them to leave, but the same for web crawlers, too. State your business early.
The goal is to win people over right from the get go.
If you need help with creating content for your site please email Ann Menke
Thanks for visiting my blog.

Newsletters Help Your Site to Get More Visitors

If you’ve attracted a user to your site, you want to make sure he comes back. If he didn’t click on other pages during his last visit, he might click next time. And if he did click on other pages during his last visit, then that’s definitely the sort of user you want returning. Satisfying your users with valuable content will help, but even the most satisfied user can still forget to check your site regularly. That’s why a newsletter is such an important tool. You should always be trying to capture your users’ email addresses. You’ll be able to remind them that you’re out there, tell them that you have good information and suggest that they come back to your site.
This is especially good if you have new inventory you want them to see. You can put links to your products directly into the newsletter itself. One way to create a newsletter and use it to generate more visits to your site is to fill it with original content and make sure that your URL is well displayed. If people feel that they’re getting good content from your newsletter, they’ll come to the site to find out more. The other method is even easier. Every time you create a new blog post or write a new article simply take the first paragraph or two and paste it into your newsletter template. When the template is full, mail it off to your list. To read the rest of the article, those old users will have to visit your site. If you’re not sending a newsletter to your users, you’re also missing a valuable way to generate traffic from previous visitors.
If you would like to find out more ways to generate traffic to your site please visit:
How To Improve Your Websites Performance.
Thanks for visiting my blog - Ann Menke

Know Your Customer

Know Your Customer: websites that try to sell everything are going to be a turnoff to the average consumer. Even though the Internet is an anonymous electronic force, consumers want to feel as if the website owner knows about and cares about them as individuals, and a website that tries to be Wal-mart to you is going to get exactly what it deserves - nothing.
At the same time, if you understand the type of person coming to your website and you can deliver to them items that they really want and need, you're going to get a repeat customer. Ideally, your web sales should take place within content on your website, and when your customer reads about the item you're selling, they should instantly want it.
Use Targeted Content: Once you know exactly what you should be selling to your customer, you can target your content to support those sales. Consumers, more than anything else, want information on products they may want to buy. And those who sell products depend on "buzz," people like you talking about the product's advantages and disadvantages, to get those products sold.
Targeted content can be the obvious reviews of books, new products, etc. But it can also be things like descriptions of fishing trips where you drop in links to your products you actually used. For instance, if you caught a huge bass last weekend using a particular lure, you can drop in a photo of the lure, linking the photo and a text reference to your lure sales page where you actually allow the consumer to purchase that lure.
This is a trick that television networks are just catching onto. While recent fashions may have been largely driven by the clothes characters wear in popular TV shows, there was no way to purchase those fashions without searching for something similar throughout stores. Just this season, networks are starting websites where you can purchase the sweater Jennifer Aniston wore, or Tom Welling's jacket, even funky new glasses frames. It's the ultimate targeted-content model, if they sell it right.
You probably don't have a network to sell your products on. But you can develop a dedicated audience that knows your recommended products are good, reliable, and exactly what you say they are.
If you need help developing content for your site to promote your products please visit A1AWEB Thanks for visiting my blog- Ann Menke

Promoting Your New Online Store

OK. So you took the leap and started your online store-perhaps you were selling Dump Trailers. But, oops, there are no customers and your store is lost in the crowd. All is not lost. You just need to be very creative in how you market your site. The key thing to remember as you market your site is "people buy from people, not companies."

To make money online: 1) You must get traffic to your site. 2) You must convert that traffic to paying customers. To begin simply create a T-chart. Label one column "Traffic" and the other "Conversion." Then brainstorm what methods you will use to to make those happen and turn them into an action plan.

Traffic suggestions for you:

* Pay per click
* Offline advertising
* Article marketing
* Newsletter
* Autoresponders
* Word of mouth
* Joint ventures / strategic partnerships
* Talks to groups
* Participation in online forums / discussion groups

Most online stores are extremely competitive (what's not these days?) and they compete on price - one of the worst ways to compete. What you need to do is find a way to take the focus off the money, find your unique value and promote it from there.

So how do you do that? First you have to know who your prospect is so you can speak to them directly. Hint: Your market is not everyone or anyone. Once you know who your prospect is, you can implement tactics that will convert them into customers.

Here are some ideas that will help your conversion rate:

* Bundled products
* Free gift with purchase
* Regular newsletter
* Autoresponder course
* Helpful content on your website
* Companion blog for your website

These should get you thinking about where you need to go. This is not by any means a complete, comprehensive list -- just a start. Begin by putting all of your ideas together in an action plan. Use your action plan to drive what you do every day. Spend at least one hour on these tasks per day. In no time you'll find you've made a lot of progress.

If you need help getting started please visit A1AWEB
Thanks for visiting my blog - Ann Menke

Create One Page for Each Product

Use unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Don't try to lump a bunch of products together to save a bit of money on web hosting. Have a site with individual pages dedicated to each product and to nothing else. I just created a site like that called Maxi Dump. Include affiliate product reviews on the website to spell out exactly what the product will do for the purchaser. Include testimonials from users who have enjoyed the product and are willing to allow you to use their names and photos on your website for that product. Write articles highlighting uses for the product and include them on the website as additional pages. Make the web pages compelling, and include calls to act on the information. Every headline must attract the reader to read more. Bullets and highlights of special points will help the reader who is scanning to learn what the page is about find that they have to know more!
If you need a website built today look at the websites I have already created for many happy customers at: A1AWEB Internet Advertising
Thanks for visiting my blog: Ann Menke

Keep Content Fresh

The Internet is primarily two things. It's a huge reference library with information of varying quality, free to anyone accessing it. And it's the biggest marketing and advertising engine ever invented. You can take advantage of the enormous advertising potential of the Internet by using well-written and optimized content articles. Content articles are the key to:
- Delivering good information to your customers
- Showing that you are the master of your topic
- Placing well on search engines
- Keeping your customers happy enough to come back
Good websites, laid out in a friendly way, with excellent and constantly fresh keyword-optimized content, are the ones that will wind up on top. Always keep content fresh. This may be the second most common mistake made by business owners- putting up a website, then sitting back and ignoring it. Web crawlers seek out fresh content, and sites that are always fresh get ranked higher at the top of the search engine rankings.
I have lots of content articles about all different type of subjects your site may benefit from so if you are looking for content even if it is for something as mundane as Dump Trailers please email me and I will see if I can help.
Thanks for visiting my blog- Ann Menke

Being Prepared for Any Disaster

With all the things in the news about natural disasters that could befall us like mad cow, bird flu, hurricanes and tornadoes it is in my opinion a good idea to prepare for any eventuality. Of course I hope none of these things ever happen but if you live in Florida nowadays you are at least prepared in case of a hurricane. This means stocking up on water, canned goods, flashlight batteries, gasoline and having a generator handy just in case. When you live here these are just the bare minimum of things that you need to keep on hand. But if you are looking at something more long term you might want to think about stocking up more food and supplies than what is just needed for a bad storm. We buy a few extra canned goods each time we shop to help spread out the cost of stocking up and we rotate what we have so the older stuff gets used and the new stuff goes in the back. One thing people don't think about is trash pickup-it's good to have a backup plan in case that gets disrupted. It's hard for them to pickup your trash when the streets are flooded. We bought a dump bed for our pickup from http://www.maxi-dump.com so if we have to we can haul trash to the dump ourselves. I know it came in handy for yard cleanup after the hurricanes last year. Do yourself a big favor and get prepared now-think about it each time you go grocery shopping. Remember how empty the shelves get right before a storm-don't wait till the last minute. Thanks for reading my blog, Ann Menke

Secrets of Getting Your Site Indexed in the Search Engines

I get emails all the time from people whose sites just aren't getting on the search engines. On of them whose site I redid recently was http://www.maxi-dump.com. I usually refer people with questions about how to optimize their website to a page that tells about all the things they need to do to accompish this: http://www.a1aweb.com/improve.htm
The first thing I do is look at their website and view the source code to see if their website developer remembered to put meta tags on each page and then I look to see if these need any improvement. If they don't have meta tags I tell them to have their website developer add them or I can add them for a small fee per page. If you don't have a good meta tags with your title, description especially than the search engines will make up their own title and description for your site based on your content. And this may not be as good as what you would of wanted them to come up with. This is why it is so important to have meta tags, this way you can define exactly what you want the search engines to have come up about your site when someone does a search. The Titles are especially important because keywords in them are looked at very closely by the search engines. So make sure you put your most important keywords first and your company name after that in your title. I would suggest doing the same for your descriptions as well. If you need help with it please visit the page suggested above, read it and then contact me. Thanks, Ann Menke

Others Things You can Do To Get More Hits

I just got off the phone with http://www.redzee.com and would like to recommend them as an addition to or alternative to doing pay-per-click thru Google and Yahoo. Thru them you can buy a keyword that pertains to your business and everyone that uses their browser will end up finding you at the top of their search for that keyword. For instance I can buy the word "dump trailer" for my customer http://www.maxi-dump.com for $500 for 5000 clicks/hits to their website. This is much less than you would pay for that word on google or yahoo for ppc. So they get alot more bang for their buck this way. Of course they are paying a lump sum in advance versus one day at a time like they do for the major search engines but that is why it is less per click. They do have starter packages for less for those who are interested email me at info@a1aweb.com.
Thanks, Ann

Is It Better Not to Give a Phone Number On Your Website

I have found that by leaving my phone number off of my website people are more apt to fill out the contact form. Perhaps it is pure laziness or the inability to type that keeps people from filling out forms but I have been able to cut down on lots of dumb questions by removing my phone number. It seemed that most calls could of been answered with an email if they had taken the time to fill out the contact form. So yes I would recommend leaving your number off your website unless you have someone there to answer it all the time. Also it helps you to collect more email addresses if you force them to fill out a form to contact you versus writing down someone name and number when they call and then possibly losing it on a notepad. When their contact information comes into your email it is easy to drag and drop it into a customers folder.
I use these later to email those in one group perhaps interested in Dump Trucks. I can create one email telling everyone to visit my website http://www.maxi-dump.com or http://www.floridaearthmovers.com to look at new listings for dump trucks or dump trailers. So take your number off your website and save yourself a whole lot of phone interuptions.
Thanks for visiting my blog, Ann Menke at http://www.a1aweb.com

Prepare for a Long Hurricane Season

Well it sure is getting warm here early this year...and seeing that bad weather in Australia and in the Midwest just makes me think that is going to be a bangup hurricane season. So now is the time to think ahead and prepare. We just bought a dump bed from http://www.maxi-dump.com
for everything from yard work to disaster cleanup. And even if we don't need it I know there is always someone around here that would like to rent it...notice I said rent and not borrow. I will also throw in a few teenagers for a small fee. Don't forget to get yer generator primedup and running for those weeks without electric. I have a wireless connection so I can still get online as long as I have a few hours I can plug my laptop into the generator to recharge the batteries. If you haven't got a generator nows the time to get one before you really need one and plenty of gas cans on hand. We live out in the sticks and the electric is not very reliable so that is something that is a given out here. I still haven't forgotten the gas lines caused by Katrina last year so think ahead everyone....Hope you'all have a safe and happy summer,
A.

Answer All of Your Emails ASAP

I know that most business owners just don't have the time to answer emails and it is not on the top of their list of things to do. I would like to see more business owners show a greater respect for email inquiries for their products. To me when someone takes the time to look at your website and fill out your contact form they deserve as much attention as the person who walks into the door of your office or store. They deserve more than just a short one line email answer in return. After all if you treated a customer that way in person would you expect to make a sale? I know that alot of the people who answer the emails are either too busy, can't type very well or just think email is annoying. Pay attention to these people they are your prospective customers and need the same courtesies as the walkins. Thank them for visiting your website, make sure you put your website address in your email so they can visit it again and ask them if they need help finding anything. Just a few extra lines of appreciation for them taking the time to visit your website can mean the difference between a just browsing or a sale. If you don't have time to answer your emails, get someone that knows how to do email to do it for you. Come up with a well thought out response and save it in a drafts folder for easy copy/pasting to speed up email replies. If you really need help I answer emails for alot of my customers for only $20 per month....you can see a list of my customers here at http://www.a1aweb.com and be sure to visit my newest one http://www.maxi-dump.com

Thanks, Ann Menke

To Busy To Create A Blog For Your Business

My customer http://www.maxi-dump.com says he is just too busy to do blogging so I offered to do it for him for $10 per paragraph. I am going to write a paragraph a day about the products he sells with links going to his site in the hopes it will someday soon get his new site more hits.
If you are a busy business owner and find yourself in the same position email me at info@a1aweb.com and I will do the same for you. You can see all the work I have done for my customers at http://www.a1aweb.com
Thanks, Ann Menke

Blogging to get your New Website indexed faster

IT can take months for google to index a new site.
One way to get them to index it faster is to create a blog on blogger.com for free.

For example write just one paragraph per day about dump trailers and put a link in the paragraph going to http://www.maxi-dump.com
Do this for 8 days in a row and after the 8th day google will index the new site.

To get Yahoo.com to index your site create a blog thru spaces.msn.com
Write 1 paragraph per day for 3 days in a row.
Bring your blog in as content on your free yahoo account at http://my.yahoo.com/
This will cause yahoo to spider your blog and find the links to your website after it sees that you have posted for 3 days.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need

Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.

But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better.
So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.
To read about some of the things you can do to optimize your website go to:
A1AWEB.com

Organic Search Engine Optimization

Organic SEO seems to be the catch phrase of the moment. However, unlike many other linking tactics and strategies, this one actually works.


What is Organic SEO or Organic Search Engine Optimization?

Explained simply, it's where all your linking structures originates from the content up - in other words, you let all your content created for your sites, blogs and articles do your link building for you.


Actually, the answer is as simple as this blog. You're probably experiencing one of the best examples of Organic SEO right this moment by reading this article. Article marketing and blog marketing are pure Organic SEO. You let your articles and blog and your links throughout build one-way links from your article or blog to your website.

But the keyword is content. You must create high quality original content for this system to really develop and flourish. The better the content, the faster your rankings and traffic will grow. By producing valuable content in articles, sites and blogs, you are building real traffic and real links that the search engines salivate over. And they will reward your site with higher rankings and even more traffic.

Try Article Writing...


Frankly, I was rather surprised at the effectiveness of article writing. It seems like such a benevolent little creature. You write about your own experiences on the subject of your site or blog, keeping your articles short, around 500 to 800 words - although some of my best performing articles have been longer, about 900 to 1200 words.

If you need help coming up with keyword rich content for your websites and blogs let me write do it for you just email me at:info@a1aweb.com or call: 800-459-8675 and while you're at it please visit my main business website:
A1AWEB.com