OnDemand Virtual Assistant Services

I cannot wait for the 16th. I am going on a very much needed vacation!

Just thinking about being in the sun by the pool has totally inspired me to be giving! So for a limited time I am offering a fabulous deal…

FREE Virtual Assistant

But you have to hurry because it will only be available in August 2008!

If you have always wanted to try out a virtual assistant or just have some extra tasks you haven’t been able to complete, get them done for FREE!

In August you can Test Drive our services! When you purchase just 2 hours of administrative or light marketing services you will receive 2 hours FREE! Now that’s buy one get one!

Our usual Test Drive is great but you have to buy five hours in order to get your free 2 hours - I told you I was feeling generous!

Visit us today and fill out the form on our contact page to inquire about this specific Test Drive program!
http://www.ondemandvirtualservices.com/contact.htm

List Hero has been great and the guys over there were great about getting more information to give you guys. Here’s a must read article from the creator - whether you are a virtual assistant, coach or any business owner looking to grow your list…

5.5 Tips That Boost Your Subscriber Profits
By Brian Terry
Have you ever wondered how you can make the subscribers on your list
more responsive? Here’s what I mean… I’m sure you’ve done this
before, you send your subscribers one email after another full of
valuable, useful content, then you make a recommendation to a product
and virtually no one orders through your link. Sound familiar?
It took me many years of trial and error to create this list of 5 tips
that help you boost your subscriber profits.
Pay close attention to what I’m about to reveal because it can and will
increase your listbuilding profits.
Tip 1: Use double optin subscriptions
Getting people to confirm their subscription ensures you have people on
your list who definitely want to hear more from you. This is one of the
most important steps to take because it helps you to build a quality
subscriber list. Remember listbuilding is about quality not quantity.
Tip 2: Use personalization
It’s been proven time and time again that personalization significantly
increases the effectiveness of your communication with your
subscribers. By including your subscribers name in the emails you send
them gives the message a sense of it’s being sent just for them and
no-one else.
Tip 3: Train your subscribers
For every 2 emails you send out that are content orientated send out 1
email that’s an honest recommendation you make for a product you think
will help them. Train your list to expect to receive offers from you
that will be of use to them.
Tip 4: Regularly survey your subscribers
Find out what your lists wants, then give it to them. Simple. You could
ask them questions like what’s their biggest problem online as well as
ask other demographic style questions. This helps you to build a
profile of your subscriber and gives you great understanding as to how
you can help them better and what offers they’re more likely to respond
to.
Tip 5: Give your list special offers
It doesn’t matter if you own a product or are an affiliate, make your
list an offer only they’ll be getting. It could be for the next 48
hours you’re offering 20% discount on your product. Or you offer an
extra bonus but only if they order something through your affiliate
link.
Tip 5.5: Keep in regular contact with your subscribers
It’s when you email your list 2 times a month that they begin to forget
who you are. Stay in regular contact and people will begin to know,
like and trust you. Above all don’t forget this one golden rule of
listbuilding… the money is in your “relationship” with your list not
it’s size.
——————————–
About the Author
Brian Terry is the Co-founder of ListHero where he provides you with
the fastest, easiest way to build your list for free.
http://www.listhero.com/44407
——————————–

I am soo excited about this news! If you have any sort of flash on your site you will be excited too! Check out the post I read…

We’ve received numerous requests to improve our indexing of Adobe Flash files. Today, Ron Adler and Janis Stipins—software engineers on our indexing team—will provide us with more in-depth information about our recent announcement that we’ve greatly improved our ability to index Flash.

Q: Which Flash files can Google better index now?
We’ve improved our ability to index textual content in SWF files of all kinds. This includes Flash “gadgets” such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites, and everything in between.

Q: What content can Google better index from these Flash files?
All of the text that users can see as they interact with your Flash file. If your website contains Flash, the textual content in your Flash files can be used when Google generates a snippet for your website. Also, the words that appear in your Flash files can be used to match query terms in Google searches.

In addition to finding and indexing the textual content in Flash files, we’re also discovering URLs that appear in Flash files, and feeding them into our crawling pipeline—just like we do with URLs that appear in non-Flash webpages. For example, if your Flash application contains links to pages inside your website, Google may now be better able to discover and crawl more of your website.

Q: What about non-textual content, such as images?
At present, we are only discovering and indexing textual content in Flash files. If your Flash files only include images, we will not recognize or index any text that may appear in those images. Similarly, we do not generate any anchor text for Flash buttons which target some URL, but which have no associated text.

Also note that we do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements.

Q: How does Google “see” the contents of a Flash file?
We’ve developed an algorithm that explores Flash files in the same way that a person would, by clicking buttons, entering input, and so on. Our algorithm remembers all of the text that it encounters along the way, and that content is then available to be indexed. We can’t tell you all of the proprietary details, but we can tell you that the algorithm’s effectiveness was improved by utilizing Adobe’s new Searchable SWF library.

Q: What do I need to do to get Google to index the text in my Flash files?
Basically, you don’t need to do anything. The improvements that we have made do not require any special action on the part of web designers or webmasters. If you have Flash content on your website, we will automatically begin to index it, up to the limits of our current technical ability (see next question).

That said, you should be aware that Google is now able to see the text that appears to visitors of your website. If you prefer Google to ignore your less informative content, such as a “copyright” or “loading” message, consider replacing the text within an image, which will make it effectively invisible to us.

Q: What are the current technical limitations of Google’s ability to index Flash?
There are three main limitations at present, and we are already working on resolving them:

1. Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. So if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed.
2. We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files. If your Flash file loads an HTML file, an XML file, another SWF file, etc., Google will separately index that resource, but it will not yet be considered to be part of the content in your Flash file.
3. While we are able to index Flash in almost all of the languages found on the web, currently there are difficulties with Flash content written in bidirectional languages. Until this is fixed, we will be unable to index Hebrew language or Arabic language content from Flash files.

We’re already making progress on these issues, so stay tuned!

Posted by Ron Adler, Janis Stipins, and Maile Ohye

I’m evaluating a viral list building software tool from the folks at ListHero.com.

It’s the fastest, simplest and easiest way to build your list that I’ve seen
in a long while.

Here’s all you do…

• Create a short ad that promotes
  your newsletter or ezine
• Add some code to the pages of your website
• … sit back and watch your list
  grow.

ListHero helps you generate 1,000’s of highly targeted
subscribers for free and pays you generous affiliate commissions as
your list grows.

I’ll let you know what I think of it once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile go grab access to this free viral listbuilding software while it’s still free.

Do you know what your websites page rank is for Google? If not you should seriously consider finding out more about it.

According to Wikipedia…

So it is not only important to have lots of back links but many quality back links. SO important to be aware of! I know how time consuming this is so I have setup two ways to start this process for f ree!

Article and link directories are one of the best ways to create this massive linking system Google is looking for. So this is what you do. Go onto http://www.ondemandvirtualservices.com/directory.html and start entering in your articles and links right away for f ree. We have a page rank of 3 which is growing everyday with all the traffic we get and is really great for linking back to your website.

IMPORTANT: Don’t post all your info at once. You want to show Google that your website is organically growing with natural links over a period of time. If you post all at once you are in danger of being blacklisted!

*OnDemand Bonus:
Find out your PageRank by visiting http://www.ondemandvirtualservices.com/pagerankcalculator.html.

Or download the Google Toolbar and visit your site to see what the result is.

Refrain from Buying Bulk Mails

I am sure that you have thought about buying a mailing list at some point in your business. Or maybe you have already done so. If you haven’t, you will eventually come across advertisements that read: “2,000,000 email addresses for $29.99″.

Click in the other direction quickly!

Sure, having 2,000,000 subscribers is the best thing that could ever happen to any company especially an internet marketer. But this often is too good to be true.

What many beginning marketers do not really know is that these bulk companies harvest the email addresses using robots and other wares on the Internet. That is how the 2,000,000 email addresses come about, whatever the amount is.

Now, the really awful part is that if you purchase the so-called 2,000,000 names even at a low price, not only is it a waste of money, you are risking being accused of spamming. It is no longer a surprise how you often receive spam mails on Viagra, OEM Software and things you do not even need in your inbox.

How useful is a lead that has never heard of you and is feeling a bit angry since you are spamming them!

On top of that, not all 2,000,000 email addresses are really in use because a portion of them can either be owned by the same owners or are just completely obsolete.

So next time you are thinking of purchasing these lists, tell yourself that it is a waste of money.

I am so lucky to be working with THE Soulful Coach Joanna Lindenbaum of Soulful Coaching for Busy Women. I came across the below article while providing some article submittal work for her. I just had to share it with you all.  She is amazing and her insights are empowering - after you read this be sure to sign up for her newsletter so you can get part 2 of this article. 

We all know the feeling. You have just set an exciting, compelling goal for yourself. Maybe the goal is to climb Machupichu or to create a new career or to begin dating again or to finally tell that less-than-supportive friend how she has hurt you. Whatever the goal is, it is something you know that you really want deep inside. You know you want it because - even if only momentarily - your heart skips a beat or everything simply comes into alignment.

 And then the fear sets in.

We all experience fear differently. It rears its head in many creative ways. Yet, one thing is true about fear across the board: If you don’t take care of the fear as it comes up, your chances of achieving those juicy goals that you set out for yourself decrease drastically. And, even if you do achieve those goals, when you have not addressed your fears, the road towards achievement is often tinged with anxiety or fatigue instead of joy and confidence.

 So, what can you do when fear rears its head?

I love working on fear with the women I coach because I know that when we work with their fear and explore it, their juicy goals become much more attainable and real. Here are the first  3 of 7 steps towards action when fear comes up in your life:

1) Identify How Your Fear Expresses Itself in Your Life

Fear takes us hostage because it does not always immediately identify itself as fear. These “fear-based expressions” are often much trickier than we first realize, yet so important to identify and pay attention to them because they often cause pain and anxiety in our lives.

There are three main ways in which are fears become expressed in our lives. I call them “fear-based expressions”:

a)Body-based Expressions: These are fear-based symptoms that are expressed distinctly in our bodies. Perhaps we get a stomachache, our head begins to throb, or that old knee injury makes itself known.

b)Self-doubt and Criticism Expressions: Fear often expresses itself through self-doubt and self-criticism. We tell ourselves things like, “You could never achieve that!” or “You’re not good enough” or “Who do you think you are? You don’t deserve that.”

c)Self-sabatoge Expressions: Self-sabatoge symptoms are the obstacles that we put in our own way. We often soothe our fears by sabatoging ourselves and our goals: by becoming indecisive, by “losing” documents, by forgetting to set the alarm, by deciding to do the laundry instead of writing the cover letter, on and on. My personal favorite sabatoge technique is to overbook my schedule. Does that sound familiar?

Action Step: What are your fear-based expressions? Take a few minutes and make a list of all the body based, self-doubt based, and self-sabotage based ways fear plays out in your life.

2) Identify What’s at Risk

It is my firm belief that fear always arises as a “red-alert” that there is something for us to risk if we pursue a particular goal. For example, if you were to begin dating again, perhaps what’s at risk is getting your feelings hurt or finally letting go of your previous romantic partner. Or, if you were to pursue a new career, perhaps what’s at risk is your current salary or the connections you’ve made in your current position.

It’s important to ask the question, “What’s at risk for me if I were to pursue this goal?” because the risk IS what you are scared of.

Action Step: Journal on the following question - What’s at risk for you if you were to pursue your goal?

3) Name Your Fear and Embrace It

Now that you know what your REAL fear is (what’s at risk), it’s time to name it, feel it in your body, and embrace it. Yup, I’m serious. If fear is the big elephant in the room, and it’s not named or welcomed, then you can never really get to know it well enough to ask it to go away. Here’s a trick when  it comes to naming and embracing your fear: don’t be embarrassed about it. We ALL have fears, even the most successful or the most confident of us have fears that arise. It’s part of our human nature. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t get scared sometimes.

Action Step A: Name Your Fear. Simply name it in a word or two or three. “I am scared of failing” or “I am scared of losing Jim” or “I am scared of wasting time”

Action Step B: Feel the fear in your body. Take a few moments. Slow down. Close your eyes and notice where the fear lives in your body. Do you feel it in your shoulders, in your stomach? How does your fear affect you physically?

Action Step C: Embrace Your Fear. Perhaps you want to write it on a big piece of paper and hang it up on your refrigerator or your bathroom mirror. Perhaps you want to carry it around in your purse for a few days. Perhaps you want to write it in an email that you send to yourself or your best friend. However you do it, make it a point of embracing the thing that you are scared of. This simple act will take some of the emotional charge out of the fear and allow you to see it for what it really is.

Congratulations! After these first three steps, you probably know much more now about the nature of your fear and how it affects your life. These are great strides towards releasing this particular fear from your life. The next steps include Determining How Your Fear Serves You, Tracking the Fear and Choosing a Different Way, which will be discussed in my next newsletter.

Article By Joanna Lindenbaum, Soulful Coaching for Busy Women