Back when my wife was my fiance, she told me about this thing she had as a child. It was a Saki bottle that had a geisha inside which spun around. When it spun, it played music. One time, when her family moved, she was not present and the bottle was thrown in the garbage and left behind.

I decided to spend some time online researching the bottle, and in just 2 days, I found it. It was for sale on Ebay for around $20. I bid in it and upped my final price in case others bid. Later that day when I checked on it, someone had outbid me and the sale was finalized. I didn’t give up. 2 years later, I was able to find the bottle again, and this time I won it on Ebay for the same price. My wife was very happy, and now the bottle is in it’s box sitting on a shelf in the kitchen on display.

Internet research is something that comes natural for a person who has been in the seo business for years. Search engine optimization is all about researching the competition, and finding out what they are doing that the seo client is not, then correct it.

You may be here seeking information on how to find a maternal parent, or a long lost childhood friend. I can tell you that it is not an exact science, and it takes a lot of determination. I can provide you with the tips, but you have to put them do good use, and not give up even if it takes you years. If you are determined to find it, you will.

My biggest resources are Google, and Yahoo! because they index everything that is online. If it’s out there, they have it. It’s just a matter of doing the right searches, and sorting through the many results.

When I’m not searching Google, I use the following resources depending on what I’m looking for:

Searching for products:

http://www.ebay.com

http://www.amazon.com

http://shopping.yahoo.com/

Searching for people:

http://people.yahoo.com/

http://www.whitepages.com/

http://www.intelius.com/

http://www.whowhere.com/

http://www.anywho.com/

http://mylife.com

http://www.facebook.com

http://www.myspace.com

I have to tell you that I found a lot of people just on MySpace and Facebook alone. Google indexes many of these sites and you can find what you’re looking for pretty easily.

Incoming search terms:

• blogs about online research to find people

Breaking News: Giant Vacuum Cleans Up Oil Spill Disaster! Ok, not really. But it would make sense to do that right? All of this oil spilling into the open sea, and all they can come up with is a stupid box that’s supposed to catch and store oil. But what if they simply set loose a giant vacuum in the ocean and collected as much oil and water as possible?

They can separate the water from the oil later and put it back. I think it would be much better to do that kill everything in the ocean right now. You have to stop the bleed before you fix the wound.

Common sense people!

I often find that there are a large number of consumers out there who have no clue how the web design business works. Actually, most of them are this way. They tend to think we are cheaper than we are, or that we are willing to work for nothing more than a “designed by” link to benefit from the traffic. I also find that they tend to run away when you tell them how this business actually works because they want to find another “designer” who is willing to work on their terms. The following are my 10 reasons why I would never work with certain clients.

I come across “gigs” on craigslist all the time where the person seeking a designer says that his/her only compensation will be a link credit on the site.

Reasons why I will not do this…

• A link is not a payment. I can’t pay my utility bills or buy food for my wife and kids with a link from your brand new website, to my website.
• Link credits are traditionally required in the first place. When a web designer creates your website, he/she places a link credit in your footer that says “site designed by”. This is completely legal and in order for you to license a removal of such credit, you have to pay extra. So aside from you not wanting to pay for a website, you also want to get a free link removal from your footer. On top of this, the tiny amount of traffic that comes from such a link does not mean anything to the designer other than an inbound link. Someone actually clicking that link and paying for a web design is like playing the lottery.

This all comes down to you wanting something for free. Ask yourself. Would you go to work from 9-5 and be happy with your employer telling other people that you do good work, and that is your only payment? I don’t think so. Web designers should be looked at as a retail store. If you want the merchandise, you pay for it. Otherwise it would be stealing.

Fake intern jobs are an annoyance. Not only that, but they are illegal as well and anyone that comes across such a gig posted on craigslist or anyone else should report it to the department of labor.

Actual intern jobs will pay you something. Fake ones will tell you that you will get credits, and exposure. Avoid such gigs as they are companies that prey on students in order to get free work. I have never responded to such a post, but I have reported plenty of them.

Blatantly free web design requests are the worst. They actually tell you how bad of a financial situation they are in, and beg for a free web design by someone with a heart. I have even come across non-profits doing this. The problem in that case is that non-profits usually have money.

Another type that requests free design work are people who claim to be coming up on some big money because they are a signed recording artist, or someone with a huge business deal in place. The fact is that if they were that successful with their ventures, they would not have a problem coming up with a few hundred bucks for a basic website.

The notorious partnership scam. They tell you that they have the business sense, and investors lined up. They want to make you a partner in the company and tell you that you will make bank when they are huge.

I have to tell you, on occasion you can find a legit one that you can do some background research on. They provide actual stocks to you, and they can show you a business plan and other fact sheets to help make their case.

It is never worth it to donate your time for spec work if there isn’t some major factual evidence backing it up.

Unbearable clients are a huge issue for me. I hate clients who tell you how to do your job. If they knew how to do it, then why didn’t they just do it and leave you alone?

Some of these types of clients actually claim in their postings to be designers who just can’t handle all of the work they are getting, so they need someone that knows what they are doing to do it unsupervised. They are actually people who thought it would be a great idea to start a web design business, even thought they knew nothing about web design. They outsource their work because they fail to do it themselves and have reached the deadline.

Arguing over small things like your payment methods, or the fact that you require details of the website to be planned out ahead of time so that there are no surprise delays or costs is just unacceptable. I had a client one time that I was doing seo for. I was with him for a long time, and every single time that the invoice was sent, he would argue with me. He wanted more and more rankings, and he also wanted me to convert sales for him. The fact is that he hired me for seo and top 10 ranking services which I did a great job at. I was not hired to convert sales for his business.

Customers do not get to argue the fact that they owe you money. If you rendered services for them, they need to pay any balance they owe you or face the courts and consumer fraud reports.

More recently, I had a woman who claimed she was a huge public figure that advocated for victims of drunken driving. While I am all find and good with a case, I am not ok with her trying to use it as a reason for me to work for pennies. My price for what she was trying to get done was $2,000. She wanted it for $200. I made it clear that I do not haggle on these issues and that my price was carefully calculated based on her description of the job. I also made it clear that I was not interested in the network marketing scam she kept trying to pitch on me.

Before her, I had a client who wanted to pay with a personal check. I no longer accepted checks because of the many times I got scammed with them. She just went on and on and argued to the point where I had to be rude with her in order to get her off the phone. The fact is that I actually knew this woman, and I knew they she thought she was entitled to something and never planned on actually paying me. I had already worked with her in the past and lost $400 because she backed out of a project after it was finished.

They want to pay what their friend paid. They were referred to you by someone they know, and that someone was not supposed to tell anyone how much they paid you for services. In case, it was probably a clause in the contract they signed. But alas, this new person did find out how much they paid, and now they want the same price from you.

Different projects have different costs. Just because someone pays something for a job doesn’t mean that the new job will have the same elements as the past job. On top of that, what if you offered a sale price on the previous project, and now that sale is over with?

Stick to your guns with your prices otherwise people will think they can walk all over you.

Payment terms are something you have to seriously consider in this business. I love it when I see a person posting a project that says they will pay once the project is complete and they are fully satisfied. You will not catch me messing with such a project other than hitting the report button.

I have used sites like freelancer and have come across posts like this. They also state that they will not even use the escrow feature. Avoid such projects like the plague. If some designer over in India wants to win that project, let them. Chances are, this is a client that doesn’t want to pay at all and will continually reply at the end of a project telling you that there is something wrong with the work and it wasn’t up to specifications.

They will hold you hostage, and you will have no choice but to either keep working for free, or walk away and lose all your time and never get paid for the project.

Legit web designers require a portion of the payment up front, and the rest in some sort of increments. There are other legit designers that will not even open up photoshop unless they are fully paid up front.

Promised referrals. These are clients who don’t want to pony up the cash, but tell other people about you instead. Their entire plan is to refer others to you as payment.

I do not have a problem with such a client if they are able to refer multiple clients that turn into paying customers before I ever do any work for this client. It is only proper to have such a security measure in place. If they are in a hurry, they are out of luck with this one.

I don’t like what you did for me, so I’m not paying for it. Words that bring war. I had a client hire me for a web design worth a few hundred bucks only to have her tell me at the end that she was going to have a local friend design her site for her. She told me that because she was not using my design, she wasn’t going to pay me for it.

This all happened before I was smart enough to get paid up front. I don’t fall for these tricks anymore, and never will again. If someone refuses to pay anything up front, walk away. Designs can be stolen because they are digital works. You can copy your work with a few mouse clicks and email or store it somewhere else quickly. It isn’t like a flat screen tv that you can repo.

BONUS

I’m not qualified. A client hired a designer and given him/her only some of the information. Later the designer finds out that the client wanted some programming with that. It wasn’t a static website after all, but a dynamic one that requires someone well versed in a programming language.

You already quoted for the design, and did some of the work. Clients don’t know the difference between a designer and programmer some times. If you are only one and not the other, then this is something to discuss up front. I have had clients in this situation tell me that they were sure I could figure it out, and they were willing to pay me to do it.

The problem in this case is that the client already probably got a quote for that work from a developer, and it was out of their budget. So they want to keep hope that you can learn how to do it. I would never take on a client who wants me to do something beyond my scope of expertise. I call myself an expert for a reason, and so do others. I will not risk that for a few extra dollars.

Remember, if you can’t perform like the client expects then chances are they won’t pay you even for your efforts. Just walk the other way if you are not qualified for the task at hand.

Other reasons:

There are lots of reasons not to take on a client, and each designer may have their own reasons. I am sure that I may have missed a few, but I am sure you will discover what they are through trial and error. Feel free to post your bad experience with clients in the comment area below.

Incoming search terms:

• 200 REASONS NOT TO WORK

As you can see, I have been working on changes to my blog. I have added ad space on my sidebar, and have removed the adsense ads on my posts. I think this looks less spam-like and will help with the readability of my articles.

I have also added my psd layout design and seo services. Mouseover the “service bartering to access these pages.

I am open to feedback on these changes in comments below.

My latest stock pick for May 2010 is TRE. This stock is a steal right now at $4.67 and I am expecting it to go up past $6. If you were to grab it right now and invest $5,000 then sell it at $6 then you will make a $1,000+ profit.

This stock right now is on a continuation triangle. I will post another pick on Monday or maybe Sunday night.

Tan Range Exploration Inc. is a mineral resource company whose business strategy is to acquire royalty interests of future gold positions in both preproduction and production.

I came across a website about blacksmithing recently because I was thinking about learning the craft. I am not even going to mention the website here and give them free traffic because of their ignorance. Their entire website was a cocky load of spewing about how they are better than those seeking information or lessons.

I have never seen a worse website on the planet. It was all about how you probably work at macdonalds and can’t afford to pay $100 an hour for a master smith to teach you. Funny, because I tend to charge $300 an hour for web/graphic design and my seo consulting fees can run upwards of $10,000 a pop. Hmmm, I guess I am better than that master blacksmith! His measly $100 an hour can’t afford me and my craft.

I will just learn blacksmithing on my own just like I did everything else. This way, I can avoid the wanna-be know-it-alls who know nothing.

I probably should have put a rant warning on that, but oh well. It’s over now.

Credit cards have always been a great payment acceptance method. With credit card companies competing with each other on rates and credit types, there are thousands on new credit card holders every day.

As a business, you want to be able to make the checkout process convenient for your customer. Some of your customers pay in cash, some with checks, some with money orders, etc. You might already accept credit cards through Paypal but did you know that there are many people who simply refuse to use Paypal?

The other way to accept credit card payments is to sign up with a credit card merchant. They may have an online gateway available for checkout, but they also have credit card processor machines. Those are the machines you swipe your card through when you go to the store.

No matter how you accept payment it is important to explore all your options and maximize your payment acceptance abilities. Your company will certainly profit from it.

Without credit cards, businesses would lose billions every year. Due to customers who make impulse buys, and holiday shopping, credit cards bring in a lot of money. Credit cards are currently the most widely used payment method used today. Visa, & MasterCard are the most common of the bunch. Then there are others such as American Express, Discover Card, and Diners Club Card. The latter being harder to get because of the credit requirements. Then you have the secured credit cards for those trying to establish credit because of previous charge-offs, and collections.

Accepting all credit card types is advised.

The CMS (content management system) is a web based software that allows non-programmers to be able to change things on their website by logging in to a password protected area. More and more clients are asking for a cms with their website because they do not want to have to pay a web developer to make changes every time one comes up.

I would like to discuss various content management systems in detail so you can decide which one is best for you based on your needs, and abilities.

WordPress:

WordPress started out as a blogging platform. As a matter of fact, WordPress is what powers this blog that you are on now. What you might not know is that WordPress can also be used to power your regular website, and can be designed to not even look like a blog.

The excellent thing about wordpress is that it is very search engine friendly. The blog you are reading now is powered by WordPress and I can vouch for it. I have been working with WordPress for years.

In addition to it’s great cms features, there is an e-commerce plugin that can be added to WordPress to make it a full blown store. There aren’t a lot of ecommerce plugins available, so variety is it’s only bad thing.

Joomla and Mambo:

Joomla and Mambo are almost one in the same. When I first started with Joomla long ago, I found it rather complicated and tough to get used to. My reasoning for that is that it uses various pages to get the job done when it comes to changing, adding, and deleting content. It requires the new page to load to confirm deletion for example. I am an advocate of things being simple.

Joomla is a great CMS though if you don’t mind the short learning curve. I currently use it on a few client projects. It is simple to theme with it’s template system, and there are many free templates and plugins available for download on the internet.

OSCommerce:

OSCommerce isn’t technically a cms, but it does allow a non-programmer to edit it’s contents without a hassle. OSC is actually a shopping cart software with a ton of professional grade features.

I used to work with OSCommerce a lot before I was introduced to CRE Loaded. If you don’t see yourself needing to edit static content very much, and the design stays the same, then osc can work for you. If you do need to create and edit content pages, and change the design for holiday seasons, then CRE Loaded will be more to your liking.

CRE Loaded:

CRE Loaded is an upgrade of OSCommerce. The good thing here is that even though it is a shopping cart, CRE Loaded includes a cms to edit non-shopping cart content as well. On top of that, unlike OSC, CRE Loaded allows you to install templates rather than having to write over integrated shopping cart files. This makes it easier to theme your ecommerce website for holidays and seasons.

CRE Loaded is pretty much a supercharged version of oscommerce. There are various paid version upgrades to CRE Loaded as well as the basic free version available to download through the creloaded shopping cart system on their website.

OTHERS:

I have used various content management systems over the years, but it all comes down to the ones that I reviewed in the end. I find that until a new technology comes out that provides ease of use, and is as search engine friendly as WordPress, I will probably not be learning any new tricks when it comes to available content management systems out there.

In our world of everything internet, it is easy to find a website that has done it before. Rarely is anything innovative out there, and you should have no problem finding a site to copy the success of.

Copying the success of other sites is how you too become successful. There is software out there to track your competitors marketing efforts. The way I like to do it is by hand. The reason for this is that software cannot always see what you can see for yourself with a little bit of research.

In order to make your website a success, you need links. Links from other websites are what bring referrals to your website. You will want to copy a competitor for this, so I will teach you how to do this by hand.

To find what websites link to your competitor, you can do a Google search. To do this, enter:

url:http://competitorsite.com

Once you do this, it will show you what sites have a link to your competitor’s site. You can then go to that site and work to get your link on it. That can be very easy if that site is a forum or a blog. You can join in the discussion just like your competitor did and get that inbound link in just a few minutes.

If the website that contains your competitor’s link is a regular website, you will have to see how they are linking. If it is a reciprocal links page, then you will need to trade links with the website. If they do not provide reciprocals, then either your competitor paid for the link, or the webmaster simply likes your competitor’s website and decided to show it. You can contact that webmaster in that case and see if they like your website enough to provide a link to it.

I have to stress that this article is not a complete marketing tutorial. But it does contain the main ingredient for copying the marketing success of your competitor. A huge portion of your time should be spend copying the link building campaign, and get as many links as possible to your site. Once you have them all linking to you, go a step further and get links that your competitor does not have yet from other websites. This will help to put your site in the lead.

Ok, so you may have come here looking for information on how to work your boat, but that’s not what this article is about. This is about the size of articles. Normally I say that it doesn’t really matter if your article is small or large. What matters are it’s contents and how valuable they are to the reader.

The reason why I believe that larger articles do well, if you are able to research and write them, it because they provide that tasty content for search engine spiders. Spiders live to read text, and a huge article means many more chances of being in the top 10 of Google or some other search engine for different keywords and phrases.

An example of large articles can be seen on a site called PluginID. The site was started by a pretty talented writer who later sold it for a 5-figure amount.

He later went on to start another blog called ViperChill which I sometimes visit and see what he has cooking.

If you visit either one of those blogs, you will notice that it’s author is long-winded and writes lengthy articles filled with lots of valuable information for the reader. The reason why this works is because it creates a better likelihood that readers will comment. When someone is really looking for in-depth information on a subject, they sometimes are willing to sit there and read huge articles.

I tend to write medium length articles because that is what I usually have time for. When I am not blogging, I am designing websites, doing seo work or consulting, or doing things here at home. I have a wife and two kids to take care of.

I was just telling a friend the other day that I also market my blog and websites heavily, and volunteer as a dmoz editor. I am stretched pretty thin, but it works for me. On occasion, I try to write heavy in-depth articles. I would like to do nothing but write articles, and one day I will. If you want to reach some sort of success, the lengthier your articles, the better chance you have of ranking and getting traffic. You also have a good chance of being linked to by your readers who enjoyed your research.

If you have a hard time writing (aka writers block), my advice is this. Every subject that can be covered, has been covered. The topic you write will not be unique. What will make it unique is your insight into that topic, and how you translate it in your own way for your readers. If you need some inspiration for a good topic to cover in-depth, you can always go to a blog that already writes big articles and see what they are doing. Don’t just browse, but take part by commenting on their articles. This will equal a ‘thank you’ to the author for providing information that you enjoyed. It will also help you stir up ideas because it takes some thinking to come up with a decent comment that helps make you look like an authority.

When you begin writing, don’t throw out the idea of saving your draft for later. I understand you are eager to get your big article out there right away, but sometimes it is better to wait and research, then see what your brain comes up with to add to your article.

Once you do publish your article, it is important to keep an eye on your stats. Notice how many visits your new article receives compared to the smaller ones you have published in the past. This will give you an idea as to how successful your blog can be if you continued on that path. As always, check back here for the latest articles, and sign up for my newsletter on the right to get free marketing tips that are not published on my blog!