Foreign Exchange Market

The foreign exchange (currency or forex or FX) market exists wherever one currency is traded for another. It is by far the largest market in the world, in terms of cash value traded, and includes trading between large banks, central banks, currency speculators, multinational corporations, governments, and other financial markets and institutions. Retail traders (small speculators) are a small part of this market. They may only participate indirectly through brokers or banks and may be targets of forex scams.

Contents Market size and liquidity Trading characteristics Market participants Banks Commercial Companies Central Banks Investment Management Firms Hedge Funds Retail Forex Brokers Speculation Reference See also External links

Market size and liquidity

The foreign exchange market is unique because of:

• its trading volume,
• the extreme liquidity of the market,
• the large number of, and variety of, traders in the market,
• its geographical dispersion,
• its long trading hours - 24 hours a day (except on weekends).
• the variety of factors that affect exchange rates,

Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study Triennial Central Bank Survey 2004

• $600 billion spot
• $1,300 billion in derivatives, ie
  • $200 billion in outright forwards
  • $1,000 billion in forex swaps
  • $100 billion in FX options.

Exchange-traded forex futures contracts were introduced in 1972 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and are actively traded relative to most other futures contracts. Forex futures volume has grown rapidly in recent years, but only accounts for about 7% of the total foreign exchange market volume, according to The Wall Street Journal Europe (5/5/06, p. 20).

Top 10 Currency Traders

% of overall volume, May 2005

Rank	Name	% of volume
1	Deutsche Bank	17.0
2	UBS	12.5
3	Citigroup	7.5
4	HSBC	6.4
5	Barclays	5.9
6	Merrill Lynch	5.7
7	J.P. Morgan Chase	5.3
8	Goldman Sachs	4.4
9	ABN AMRO	4.2
10	Morgan Stanley	3.9

The ten most active traders account for almost 73% of trading volume, according to The Wall Street Journal Europe, (2/9/06 p. 20). These large international banks continually provide the market with both bid (buy) and ask (sell) prices. The bid/ask spread is the difference between the price at which a bank or market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") and the price at which a market-maker will buy ("bid") from a wholesale customer. This spread is minimal for actively traded pairs of currencies, usually only 1-3 pips. For example, the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.2200/1.2203. Minimum trading size for most deals is usually $1,000,000.

These spreads might not apply to retail customers at banks, which will routinely mark up the difference to say 1.2100 / 1.2300 for transfers, or say 1.2000 / 1.2400 for banknotes or travelers' cheques. Spot prices at market makers vary, but on EUR/USD are usually no more than 5 pips wide (i.e. 0.0005). Competition has greatly increased with pip spreads shrinking on the majors to as little as 1 to 1.5 pips.

Trading characteristics

There is no single unified foreign exchange market. Due to the over-the-counter (OTC) nature of currency markets, there are rather a number of interconnected marketplaces, where different currency instruments are traded. This implies that there is no such thing as a single dollar rate - but rather a number of different rates (prices), depending on what bank or market maker is trading. In practice the rates are often very close, otherwise they could be exploited by arbitrageurs.

Top 6 Most Traded Currencies

Rank	Currency	ISO 4217 Code	Symbol
1	United States dollar	USD	$
2	Eurozone euro	EUR	€
3	Japanese yen	JPY	¥
4	British pound sterling	GBP	£
5-6	Swiss franc	CHF	-
5-6	Australian dollar	AUD	$

The main trading centers are in London, New York, and Tokyo, but banks throughout the world participate. As the Asian trading session ends, the European session begins, then the US session, and then the Asian begin in their turns. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open.

There is little or no 'inside information' in the foreign exchange markets. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as by expectations of changes in monetary flows caused by changes in GDP growth, inflation, interest rates, budget and trade deficits or surpluses, and other macroeconomic conditions. Major news is released publicly, often on scheduled dates, so many people have access to the same news at the same time. However, the large banks have an important advantage; they can see their customers order flow. Trading legend Richard Dennis has accused central bankers of leaking information to hedge funds. [1]

Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.

On the spot market, according to the BIS study, the most heavily traded products were:

• EUR/USD - 28 %
• USD/JPY - 17 %
• GBP/USD (also called cable) - 14 %

and the US currency was involved in 89% of transactions, followed by the euro (37%), the yen (20%) and sterling (17%). (Note that volume percentages should add up to 200% - 100% for all the sellers, and 100% for all the buyers). Although trading in the euro has grown considerably since the currency's creation in January 1999, the foreign exchange market is thus still largely dollar-centered. For instance, trading the euro versus a non-European currency ZZZ will usually involve two trades: EUR/USD and USD/ZZZ. The only exception to this is EUR/JPY, which is an established traded currency pair in the interbank spot market.

Market participants

According to the BIS study Triennial Central Bank Survey 2004

• 53% of transactions were strictly interdealer (ie interbank);
• 33% involved a dealer (ie a bank) and a fund manager or some other non-bank financial institution;
• and only 14% were between a dealer and a non-financial company.

Banks

The interbank market caters for both the majority of commercial turnover and large amounts of speculative trading every day. A large bank may trade billions of dollars daily. Some of this trading is undertaken on behalf of customers, but much is conducted by proprietary desks, trading for the bank's own account.

Until recently, foreign exchange brokers did large amounts of business, facilitating interbank trading and matching anonymous counterparts for small fees. Today, however, much of this business has moved on to more efficient electronic systems, such as EBS, Reuters Dealing 3000 Matching (D2), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg and TradeBook(R). The broker squawk box lets traders listen in on ongoing interbank trading and is heard in most trading rooms, but turnover is noticeably smaller than just a few years ago.

Commercial Companies

An important part of this market comes from the financial activities of companies seeking foreign exchange to pay for goods or services. Commercial companies often trade fairly small amounts compared to those of banks or speculators, and their trades often have little short term impact on market rates. Nevertheless, trade flows are an important factor in the long-term direction of a currency's exchange rate. Some multinational companies can have an unpredictable impact when very large positions are covered due to exposures that are not widely known by other market participants.

Central Banks

National central banks play an important role in the foreign exchange markets. They try to control the money supply, inflation, and/or interest rates and often have official or unofficial target rates for their currencies. They can use their often substantial foreign exchange reserves, to stabilize the market. Milton Friedman argued that the best stabilization strategy would be for central banks to buy when the exchange rate is too low, and to sell when the rate is too high - that is, to trade for a profit. Nevertheless, central banks do not go bankrupt if they make large losses, like other traders would, and there is no convincing evidence that they do make a profit trading.

The mere expectation or rumor of central bank intervention might be enough to stabilize a currency, but aggressive intervention might be used several times each year in countries with a dirty float currency regime. Central banks do not always achieve their objectives, however. The combined resources of the market can easily overwhelm any central bank. Several scenarios of this nature were seen in the 1992-93 ERM collapse, and in more recent times in South East Asia.

Investment Management Firms

Investment Management firms (who typically manage large accounts on behalf of customers such as pension funds, endowments etc.) use the Foreign exchange market to facilitate transactions in foreign securities. For example, an investment manager with an international equity portfolio will need to buy and sell foreign currencies in the spot market in order to pay for purchases of foreign equities. Since the forex transactions are secondary to the actual investment decision, they are not seen as speculative or aimed at profit-maximisation.

Some investment management firms also have more speculative specialist currency overlay units, which manage clients' currency exposures with the aim of generating profits as well as limiting risk. The number of this type of specialist is quite small, their large assets under management (AUM) can lead to large trades.

Hedge Funds

Hedge funds, such as George Soros's Quantum fund have gained a reputation for aggressive currency speculation since 1990. They control billions of dollars of equity and may borrow billions more, and thus may overwhelm intervention by central banks to support almost any currency, if the economic fundamentals are in the hedge funds' favor.

Retail Forex Brokers

Retail forex brokers or market makers handle a minute fraction of the total volume of the foreign exchange market. According to CNN, one retail broker estimates retail volume at $25-50 billion daily, [2]which is about 2% of the whole market. CNN also quotes an official of the National Futures Association "Retail forex trading has increased dramatically over the past few years. Unfortunately, the amount of forex fraud has also increased dramatically."

All firms offering foreign exchange trading online are either market makers or facilitate the placing of trades with market makers.

In the retail forex industry market makers often have two separate trading desks- one that actually trades foreign exchange (which determines the firm's own net position in the market, serving as both a proprietary trading desk and a means of offsetting client trades on the interbank market) and one used for off-exchange trading with retail customers (called the "dealing desk" or "trading desk").

Many retail FX market makers claim to "offset" clients' trades on the interbank market (that is, with other larger market makers), e.g. after buying from the client, they sell to a bank. Nevertheless, the large majority of retail currency speculators are novices and who lose money , so that the market makers would be giving up large profits by offsetting. Offsetting does occur, but only when the market maker judges its clients' net position as being very risky.

The dealing desk operates much like the currency exchange counter at a bank. Interbank exchange rates, which are displayed at the dealing desk, are adjusted to incorporate spreads (so that the market maker will make a profit) before they are displayed to retail customers. Prices shown by the market maker do not neccesarily reflect interbank market rates. Arbitrage opportunities may exist, but retail market makers are efficient at removing arbitrageurs from their systems or limiting their trades.

A limited number of retail forex brokers offer consumers direct access to the interbank forex market. But most do not because of the limited number of clearing banks willing to process small orders. More importantly, the dealing desk model can be far more profitable, as a large portion of retail traders' losses are directly turned into market maker profits. While the income of a marketmaker that offsets trades or a broker that facilitates transactions is limited to transaction fees (commissions), dealing desk brokers can generate income in a variety of ways because they not only control the trading process, they also control pricing which they can skew at any time to maximize profits.

The rules of the game in trading FX are highly disadvantageous for retail speculators. Most retail speculators in FX lack trading experience and and capital (account minimums at some firms are as low as 250-500 USD). Large minimum position sizes, which on most retail platforms ranges from $10,000 to $100,000, force small traders to take imprudently large positions using extremely high leverage. Professional forex traders rarely use more than 10:1 leverage, yet many retail Forex firms default client accounts to 100:1 or even 200:1, without disclosing that this is highly unusual for currency traders. This drastically increases the risk of a margin call (which, if the speculator's trade is not offset, is pure profit for the market maker).

According to the Wall Street Journal (Currency Markets Draw Speculation, Fraud July 26, 2005) "Even people running the trading shops warn clients against trying to time the market. 'If 15% of day traders are profitable,' says Drew Niv, chief executive of FXCM, 'I'd be surprised.' "

In the US, "it is unlawful to offer foreign currency futures and option contracts to retail customers unless the offeror is a regulated financial entity" according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Legitimate retail brokers serving traders in the U.S. are most often registered with the CFTC as "futures commission merchants" (FCMs) and are members of the National Futures Association (NFA). Potential clients can check the broker's FCM status at the NFA. Retail forex brokers are much less regulated than stock brokers and there is no protection similar to that from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. The CFTC has noted an increase in forex scams

Forex Money Management

Put two rookie traders in front of the screen, provide them with your best high-probability set-up, and for good measure, have each one take the opposite side of the trade. More than likely, both will wind up losing money. However, if you take two pros and have them trade in the opposite direction of each other, quite frequently both traders will wind up making money - despite the seeming contradiction of the premise. What's the difference? What is the most important factor separating the seasoned traders from the amateurs? The answer is money management.

Like dieting and working out, money management is something that most traders pay lip service to, but few practice in real life. The reason is simple: just like eating healthy and staying fit, money management can seem like a burdensome, unpleasant activity. It forces traders to constantly monitor their positions and to take necessary losses, and few people like to do that. However, as Figure 1 proves, loss-taking is crucial to long-term trading success.

Amount of Equity Lost	Amount of Return Necessary to Restore to Original Equity Value
25%	33%
50%	100%
75%	400%
90%	1000%

Figure 1 - This table shows just how difficult it is to recover from a debilitating loss.

Note that a trader would have to earn 100% on his or her capital - a feat accomplished by less than 1% of traders worldwide - just to break even on an account with a 50% loss. At 75% drawdown, the trader must quadruple his or her account just to bring it back to its original equity - truly a Herculean task!

The Big One

Although most traders are familiar with the figures above, they are inevitably ignored. Trading books are littered with stories of traders losing one, two, even five years' worth of profits in a single trade gone terribly wrong. Typically, the runaway loss is a result of sloppy money management, with no hard stops and lots of average downs into the longs and average ups into the shorts. Above all, the runaway loss is due simply to a loss of discipline.

Most traders begin their trading career, whether consciously or subconsciously, visualizing "The Big One" - the one trade that will make them millions and allow them to retire young and live carefree for the rest of their lives. In FX, this fantasy is further reinforced by the folklore of the markets. Who can forget the time that George Soros "broke the Bank of England" by shorting the pound and walked away with a cool $1-billion profit in a single day? But the cold hard truth for most retail traders is that, instead of experiencing the "Big Win", most traders fall victim to just one "Big Loss" that can knock them out of the game forever.

Learning Tough Lessons

Traders can avoid this fate by controlling their risks through stop losses. In Jack Schwager's famous book "Market Wizards" (1989), day trader and trend follower Larry Hite offers this practical advice: "Never risk more than 1% of total equity on any trade. By only risking 1%, I am indifferent to any individual trade." This is a very good approach. A trader can be wrong 20 times in a row and still have 80% of his or her equity left.

The reality is that very few traders have the discipline to practice this method consistently. Not unlike a child who learns not to touch a hot stove only after being burned once or twice, most traders can only absorb the lessons of risk discipline through the harsh experience of monetary loss. This is the most important reason why traders should use only their speculative capital when first entering the forex market. When novices ask how much money they should begin trading with, one seasoned trader says: "Choose a number that will not materially impact your life if you were to lose it completely. Now subdivide that number by five because your first few attempts at trading will most likely end up in blow out." This too is very sage advice, and it is well worth following for anyone considering trading FX.

Money Management Styles

Generally speaking, there are two ways to practice successful money management. A trader can take many frequent small stops and try to harvest profits from the few large winning trades, or a trader can choose to go for many small squirrel-like gains and take infrequent but large stops in the hope the many small profits will outweigh the few large losses. The first method generates many minor instances of psychological pain, but it produces a few major moments of ecstasy. On the other hand, the second strategy offers many minor instances of joy, but at the expense of experiencing a few very nasty psychological hits. With this wide-stop approach, it is not unusual to lose a week or even a month's worth of profits in one or two trades. (For further reading, see Introduction To Types Of Trading: Swing Trades.)

To a large extent, the method you choose depends on your personality; it is part of the process of discovery for each trader. One of the great benefits of the FX market is that it can accommodate both styles equally, without any additional cost to the retail trader. Since FX is a spread-based market, the cost of each transaction is the same, regardless of the size of any given trader's position.

For example, in EUR/USD, most traders would encounter a 3 pip spread equal to the cost of 3/100th of 1% of the underlying position. This cost will be uniform, in percentage terms, whether the trader wants to deal in 100-unit lots or one million-unit lots of the currency. For example, if the trader wanted to use 10,000-unit lots, the spread would amount to $3, but for the same trade using only 100-unit lots, the spread would be a mere $0.03. Contrast that with the stock market where, for example, a commission on 100 shares or 1,000 shares of a $20 stock may be fixed at $40, making the effective cost of transaction 2% in the case of 100 shares, but only 0.2% in the case of 1,000 shares. This type of variability makes it very hard for smaller traders in the equity market to scale into positions, as commissions heavily skew costs against them. However, FX traders have the benefit of uniform pricing and can practice any style of money management they choose without concern about variable transaction costs.

Four Types of Stops

Once you are ready to trade with a serious approach to money management and the proper amount of capital is allocated to your account, there are four types of stops you may consider.

1. Equity Stop

This is the simplest of all stops. The trader risks only a predetermined amount of his or her account on a single trade. A common metric is to risk 2% of the account on any given trade. On a hypothetical $10,000 trading account, a trader could risk $200, or about 200 points, on one mini lot (10,000 units) of EUR/USD, or only 20 points on a standard 100,000-unit lot. Aggressive traders may consider using 5% equity stops, but note that this amount is generally considered to be the upper limit of prudent money management because 10 consecutive wrong trades would draw down the account by 50%.

One strong criticism of the equity stop is that it places an arbitrary exit point on a trader's position. The trade is liquidated not as a result of a logical response to the price action of the marketplace, but rather to satisfy the trader's internal risk controls.

Forex Broker Guide

Introduction

The following is a list of questions you may like to consider before opening an account. You can use this checklist to narrow down your selection of companies that fit your requirements. You may also wish to refer to the forex broker ratings page on this site to read about traders unique experiences with particular brokers.

Important Note to Traders: GoForex recommends you do not open an account with a U.S. based forex broker regulated by the CFTC and NFA, due to excessive and over-bearing regulation imposed on retail forex brokers including reduced leverage levels, the "no-hedging" rule and the FIFO (first-in, first-out) rule which affects the way you trade.

The following links will also give you some background information on U.S. FCM's (Futures Commission Merchants).

• Selected Financial Data for FCM's
• NFA Background Affiliation Status

1. Word of Mouth

• What do other traders say about the broker? See Forex Broker Ratings & Forex Broker Reviews
• What is their customer service like?

2. Customer Protection

• Is the broker regulated?
• What regulatory organisation are they registered with and what protections does it afford the client?
• Are client funds protected against fraud?
• Are client funds protected against bankruptcy?

3. Execution

• What business model do they operate? i.e. Are they a Market Maker[?], ECN[?] or no-dealing desk broker[?]?
• How fast is their order execution?
• Are orders manually or automatically executed? [?]
• What is the maximum trade size before you have to request a quote?
• Are all clients trades offset?

4. Spread [?]

• How small is the spread?
• Is it fixed or variable?

5. Slippage [?]

• How much slippage can be expected in normal and fast moving markets?

6. Margin [?]

• What is the margin requirement? e.g. 0.25% margin = max 400:1 leverage [?]), 0.5% margin = max 200:1 leverage, 1% margin = max 100:1 leverage, 2% margin = max 50:1 leverage, etc.
• Does the margin requirement change for different currency pairs or days of the week?
• At what point does the broker issue a margin call?
• Is required margin the same for standard and mini accounts? [?]

7. Commissions

• Does the broker charge commissions? (Most market makers commissions are built into the spread)

8. Rollover Policy [?]

• Is there a minimum margin requirement in order to earn rollover interest?
• What are the swap rates like for going long or short in a particular currency pair?
• Are there any other conditions for earning rollover interest?

9. Trading Platform

• How intuitive and functional is it to use?
• Are there many disconnections during trading hours?
• How reliable is it during fast moving markets and news announcements?
• How many different currency pairs are available to trade?
• Does the broker offer an Application Programming Interface (API) to allow clients to automate their trading systems?
• Does the broker offer any other special features? (e.g. One click dealing, trading from the chart, trailing stops, mobile trading etc.)

10. Trading Account

• What is the minimum balance required to open an account?
• What is the minimum trade size?
• Can clients adjust the standard lot size traded? [?]
• Can clients earn interest on the unused margin in their account?

How to Write a CV

In the CV heading you can write your general information:

• Name
• Surname
• Local address
• E-mail address
• Phone number

(If applying for an overseas job, please remember to include your international dialling code.) Include your mobile/cell phone number if you are going to relocate soon.

CV Skills Summary

The Skills Summary section of your CV includes your main skills. You should only include keywords in his section, do not go into lengthy descriptions of your skills. The skill summary is also called personal profile.

CV Objective

The CV Objective, sometimes also referred to as CV Personal Profile states "What is the next step in my career?" This should be a short, concise statement that informs the employer what kind of position you are looking for. The type of position, the role (managerial, supervisor, contractor) should be included as well.

If you are job hunting it is a good idea to have several CV's with different profiles or objectives. For example, you can have a CV for a sales supervisor and the other for a shop floor manager. Your 'sales supervisor' CV can highlight achievements in this area, and the CV would be tuned to that particular in terms of job descriptions and achievements.

Education on your CV

List all of your qualifications in this section. Include all of your education including certifications from non-academic institutions, especially those that are related to the job vacancy. If you have more work experience than qualifications, put your work experience before your qualifications.

Write for profit and passion

Write for profit and passion

If this is your first time visiting Article Insider, take some time to browse around. If you are looking for information on a particular topic, use the Category Menu or Search. If you don't find what you are looking for, let us know or better yet, consider writing an article for Article Insider to publish. We are always looking for new freelance writing talent. Remember, freelance writers can choose to write about practically anything.

If you are seeking to write, then welcome! There is plenty of work for writers here. The team at Article Insider knows, especially in these economic times, that many writers are turning to the internet in hopes of finding writing jobs. That is what inspired us to create Article Insider. First, let's get clear on some basic terminology. Whether one is searching for "freelance writing jobs", "online copywriting jobs" or "online content writing jobs" âÄì it all basically means the same thing: jobs for writers. The internet has now become the publishing platform of choice (or necessity!). Online has become mainstream and everyone has access.

This, as many of you are acutely aware, had a transformative effect on the traditional publishing industry. It has also generated fresh possibilities for those who love to write. There are ways for writers to earn money unheard of only five years ago. Article Insider is dedicated to exploring these new avenues of earning and career development with you. We will change to reflect your desires and needs. We start from the premise that well written, thoughtful articles will attract advertisers. For those who aren't keeping track, online advertising is the principal revenue engine driving the internet economy. That is how Google makes its money. It has been true for the traditional publishing industry as well.

We want you to make money writing

We believe that what is good for Google and has been good for the publishing industry is also good for writers. This of course turns the notion of a "writing job" on its head. By eliminating the need for a publisher in the old sense, writers now face their audience directly. Here there are no editors to determine who gets which story, dole out assignments or pay for articles (and keep the advertising profits). Each of you becomes a publisher. You need to decide what to write, when to write it and most importantly, how to write it.

Over time, if your writing is solid and your topics are well chosen, your body of online writing work will likely begin to generate advertising revenue. The more people who read and find your articles interesting, the more advertising revenues you should receive. The more articles you write, the more locations there are for additional ads, hence more revenue for you. Will you see money immediately? Probably not. But if you stick with it, then your earnings can grow long after you have written the article.

Article Insider does well economically only if you do well. For that reason we have collected information and tools to help you be successful. You'll find them under "Writer's Treasure Chest", which you can access by registering and logging in to your free Article Insider account.

Finding Online Jobs

There are many avenues to home employment on the Internet. If you look for jobs at home or work at home jobs on a search engine, you will find many Jobs at Home Websites with Job Listings. Some offer Free Membership and some charge a Monthly, Annual or Lifetime Registration Fee. Many offer Free Trial Memberships or Trial Memberships. Some jobs at home websites you will see on the Internet are: 2Work-At-Home.com, Bassador.com, HomeJobStop.com, Homeworkers.org, LegitJobs.net, SohoJobs.com, SpeedySecretarial.com, TJobs.com, Work-At-Home-Land.com and WorldWideWorkAtHome.com.

Staffing Services, No Fee Work At Home

However, there are also many more companies online offering home employment directly with no cost to you. Some of them are Outsourcing Services hiring home employees from their own websites. You will also see help wanted advertisements from temporary and permanent employment agencies looking for workers. You might consider employment agencies, staffing services, freelance websites, recruiters, help wanted classifieds or jobs search agents. An online search for virtual staffing services should provide many helpful online virtual staffing services that are looking for employees to work for their clients.

Outsourcing Services No Fees

You will find many more work at home opportunities on the Internet with Outsourcing Services. They already have a large clientele and marketing system and are looking for more employees to help their clients. There are call centers, customer support providers and customer relationship management firms that pay people for customer support work done from home, telesales specialists looking for salespeople, virtual assistant agencies looking for virtual assistants, data processing services looking for data entry typists and many other outsourcing services are advertising for employees to work online. You will also see many online Outsourcing Services that advertise editing services and recruit editors to work for their online services, or writers, typists, accountants, etc. Many temporary agencies and freelance websites also advertise for workers who will work on outsourced projects for them.

Help Wanted Classifieds

For recent help wanted classified advertisements look at http://FreshJobs.com and http://ExpertNetSurf.com. Recent classified advertisements with titles like Now Hiring, Help Wanted and Job Openings are posted in newsgroups, job boards, forums and message boards too. JobBoardMagic.com, Job-Search-Engine.com and JobLine.net check many job boards in their job search. You could also post your resume at http://HelpWantedSite.com and apply for jobs you like with your resume from their website. CareerBuilder.com, a large job and career website, and Jobvertise.com also provide this service free.

Jobs At Home Newsletters

There are also many helpful jobs at home websites that will send you recent job advertisements in a newsletter or ezine. You can join their mailing list or subscribe to their newsletters free at their websites. ExpertNetSurf.com is recommended for recent jobs at home advertisements in their free newsletter. Bassador.com, HomeJobStop.com and Telework-Connection.com also provide free jobs at home information in their newsletters. Email Alerts are also available from many job and career websites including CareerBuilder.com, HelpWantedSite.com and IHireAccounting.com

Internet Newsgroups

Another resource for job search and help wanted advertisements is Internet Newsgroups. Jobs are posted in Newsgroups at http://Google.com in newsgroups like alt.jobs.offered, misc.jobs.offered, biz.jobs.offered, us.jobs.offered and misc.jobs.offered.entry. You can find many recent help wanted advertisements in newsgroups and messages about them. You can also search for jobs. Many more jobs at home opportunities are listed in Yahoo Groups and MSN Groups.

Jobs At Home Search Engines

You will also find many jobs at home search engines and jobs search engines that you can search for jobs. You can search for home employment with jobs search engines using keywords like at home, home, homebased, job at home, outsource, remote, telecommute, telemarket, telework, virtual, work at home, and work from home. JobLine.net will do a Job Search and/or Resume Distribution for a charge. These websites have jobs at home search engines:

How Much Time Should You Spend Mortgage Shopping?

How much time should you spend shopping for a mortgage? How much effort do you need to put in to be sure of getting the best deal?

A recent report by the mortgage data company Zillow made minor waves when it found that one-third of borrowers spent only two hours or less researching their mortgage. That’s the same amount of time the average consumer spends shopping for a TV.

On average, borrowers spent five hours researching mortgages. That sounds a lot better, until you consider it’s the same amount of time the average person spends making plans for their vacation. And its half as long as the 10 hours spent shopping for a car.

Home and mortgage go together

By comparison, those same borrowers spend an average of 40 hours shopping for the house they end up buying and financing with that mortgage. That’s not to say you need to spend that long researching your mortgage, but most people will have the loan as long as they have the house - or nearly so. And a 30-year mortgage last a lot longer than the typical car or TV.

Of homeowners who obtained mortgages in the past five years to either purchase or refinance a home, two-thirds said they’d like to do things differently the next time they take out a mortgage, according to the Zillow study. And doing things differently can mean big savings. A difference of a quarter of a percent on the mortgage rate for $250,000 mortgage can mean a savings of nearly $40 a month on a 30-year fixed-rate loan – and nearly $14,000 over the life of the loan.

So how much time should you spend? If you’ve never shopped for a mortgage before, 10 hours is a pretty good rule of thumb. If you’re already familiar with the mortgage process and the fees that are involved, your time can be significantly less. But the important thing isn’t the time spent, but what you do with it that counts.

Check your credit reports first

The first thing you want to do, before you contact any lenders or even start shopping for a house, is to check your credit report. By law, you’re entitled to a free report every year from each of the three credit reporting companies – Experion, Equifax and Transunion – so just go ahead and order all three, unless you’re already ordering annual copies. Order them at www.annualcreditreport.com– that’s the official source.

Once you have your reports, check them for errors. If you find any, report them to the company in question and have them corrected. You don’t want bad information weighing down your credit score, because your score determines the interest rate you can get.

Next, start researching lenders and brokers. Choose about six to ten and call them up and ask about their rates and fees. With online brokers, you can do this electronically. Don’t focus just on the ones that advertise the lowest rates – check with a few that appear a bit higher and try to find out the reason for the difference.

Understanding mortgage fees

What you’ll find is that there are big differences in how lenders and brokers structure their fees – and understanding this is going to take most of your research time. One lender may offer a lower rate, but may charge more in points and fees, which could actually make that loan more costly than one with a higher interest rate.

When you’ve identified three or four that seem to offer the best deals, put in a loan application with each. Submitting a loan application means they must provide you with a Good Faith Estimate, which is a three-page federal form that sets forth the terms of the loan they’re offering, including interest rate and fees. Avoid lenders who insist you pay an application fee up front – there are plenty of lenders who will offer a GFE at no charge.

The new GFE, which came into use on Jan.1, 2010, is designed to make it easy to compare offers from different lender. The GFE breaks down your mortgage costs into three main categories – the interest rate, the lender’s origination fees and third-party fees charged by parties other than the lender. The form is designed to enable you to accurately compare these costs among multiple lenders and see which is the best deal.

Before committing to a lender, you may want to do one final check and request current interest rates from all of them – rates can change several times a day – before choosing one and locking in your rate. Locking in your rate pretty much commits you to a lender and you will have to pay for that. But if you’ve invested the time and done your research, you shouldn’t have anything more to worry about

Finding the Best Mortgage Lender

Mortgages have been stealing the headlines these days, from the beginning of the crisis through the anticipation concerning current financial reform. But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed – if you want a mortgage loan, you need to find a lender. With so many banks to choose from, you may feel confused and overwhelmed. If you’re looking for your mortgage lender, here are some tips to help you find the one that’s right for you.

Mortgage lender search

Step one is to search the Internet. You’ll be asked a few basic questions, like the property type, the home value, and the kind of mortgage rate you’re looking for. Then you’ll be matched with lenders who do business in your area who will give you quotes and relevant information. Next, visit any brick and mortar institutions in your neighborhood, especially the bank where you already have your account. Many offer lower preferred rates to existing customers.

If you’re working a realtor, ask her for lender suggestions. She’s been around the closing block a few times and can offer great tips on who to, and who not to, use. Warning: Don’t be compelled or pressured to take her suggestion. Her recommendation is just another quote for you to compare with the others.

Make a list of the different lenders, and what they’re offering, so that you can compare them side by side. Remember to include the various closing costs, application fees, APR, etc. so you can compare every aspect of the potential loan. Also request information about the application process, the documentation that you’ll need, and how long the entire process will take. Be wary of anyone who promises you a speedy closing. As a result of the recent mortgage crisis, every aspect of acquiring a home mortgage is taking longer to process. Plus, in Congress’s new legislation, it’s incumbent upon lenders to make sure that you have the ability to repay the loan, so they’ll be doing their due diligence.

Doing better business

Once you have a list of lenders, narrow it down to three. Then, check their records with the Better Business Bureau. When you type in the name of the organization you’re researching, you’ll have access to a reliability report, which rates the company from F to A+. Then you can scroll to read the specific complaints, and whether they’ve been resolved.

If the offers are comparable, trust your intuition, and select the person with whom you feel most comfortable. You’re going to be in a close relationship with the loan officer until your mortgage is funded, so make sure it’s someone who you can easily call to field any questions. If someone doesn’t return your calls, or is short with you, you won’t have a good experience.

Now that you’re armed with the information, it's time to find your mortgage lender. Choose the bank that offers the best deal, and a lending officer with whom you feel comfortable. Then the only headline you’ll be seeing is “mortgage successfully closed.”

Lets Known About Lifetime Mortgage

reverse mortgage also referred to as a 'lifetime mortgage' is a type of mortgage available for persons over the age of 62 that own their house but are interested in getting money from their home as one big payment or multiple payments.

The terms and conditions of a this kind of a mortgage does not ask the homeowner to pay for the loan during their lifetime or until, the home is sold or the owner leaves. On such a mortgage, dividends are paid out to the home owner and the debt increase while the equity on the house depletes.

The persons receving such a mortgage does not need a income or credit card but the client will need to be counseled by an approved Third party financial counselling institute before clients can apply for a reverse mortgage. The borrower will be charged for each counseling session so persons can ask all the questions hey need to, to be properly informed. It is essential that the borrower acknowledges what a reverse mortgage is, so they can legally safeguard themselves.

Since this mortgage is a fairly new program you should be properly informed. Persons who are interested in getting such a mortgage holders can browse the web and visit the HUD information site in order to get a list of approved mortgage lenders. All these mortgage lenders must be authorized through HUD, if you choose to get a loan from an entity that is not authorized then your estate might end up owing more than your home is actually valued at.

During the time when a person receives a such a mortgage they cannot be asked to leave the house because they are the owner of the house and heirs may still be able to get the property if the owner dies as long as they can refinance the reverse mortgage however, this must be completed within a year of the owner passing.

The fact that the mortgager still maintains ownership of the house, means that the borrower is still entitled to repay all the financial properties. This include tax liability, home insurance and general utility fees. Failure to make payments on home insurance, taxes and basic utilities this can cause your home to depreciate.

The borrower must maintain all the obligations of the reverse mortgage. They normally attract many hidden charges expenses like origination fees, closing cost, growing interest percentage and various other mortgage fees. These fees are determined by the mortgage company...

Guide to First Time Buyers Mortgage & First Time Buyer Mistakes

now with mortgage rates

at near low scales, mortgage payments can often be lower than rent on a home or town home. First time buyers can qualify for a mortgage at great low rates, but it is best to work with someone who has experience. Great mortgage rates are important, but you also need to take other factors into consideration. Variable vs. fixed rate mortgage, terms, amortization periods, penalties, fees and flexibility are all important components on finding the right mortgage.Now is a great time to become a homeowner. Avoid these common first time buyer mistakes:

• Not getting pre-qualified for a mortgage
  Especially if this is your first home purchase, you need to know how much you can afford before you look at houses. A qualified mortgage broker can help you look at your income, debt ratios, and other factors to help you determine an amount you can afford. Once you know your price range, you can narrow your search and avoid looking at (or worse- making an offer on) homes you can't afford. Sellers also prefer offers to purchase that do not have conditions of financial approval. In a hot real estate market, being able to quickly put in a solid offer can give you the edge over competing bids.
• Only going to their bank for a mortgage. Loan officers work for the banks and only offer the products that the bank carries. A mortgage broker works for you - they shop your loan over many lenders, including banks, finance companies, trust companies and private lenders. Even if the bank turns you down, an experienced mortgage broker can often find a lender willing to finance your mortgage. You only have to fill out one application and have one credit report pulled, and your mortgage agent can shop it over many lenders - having them compete for your business. You pay no fee for this service - the mortgage broker is paid by the lender you choose. Shopping your home loan over many lenders can save you thousands of dollars over the duration of your mortgage.
• Use a professional real estate agent. If you currently own a home, you will be better off selling your home before looking to buy a new one. You will know how much you have left after you sell your home to put towards the new one, and won't get stuck carrying both homes if your home does not sell before your new home closes.
• Have your home inspected by a professional inspection company. The cost of having a home inspector is a necessary expense since the cost of major defects, latent or otherwise, can be disastrous. Have the home inspected for structural defects, insects, radon, and other problems. If defects are identified by the inspection, you may be able to get a lower purchase price to cover the cost of repairs, or require the seller to make the repairs to the satisfaction of you/the inspector.
• Have a lawyer handle the legalities and arrange for homeowners insurance before you move in. Since owning a home is probably the biggest investment you will ever make, it pays to protect your investment.

If you are looking for a first time buyer's mortgage in Ontario, Canada or want to get preapproved before you shop for your first home, learn more with First Class Mortgages. Glenabbey.ca is a local resource for information on the Glen Abbey Oakville Canada community. Glen Abbey is also home to the Glen Abbey Golf Course, Glen Abbey Community Centre, and the gateway to Bronte Creek campground.

House Equity Release – Source of Extra Income During Retirement Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/house-equity-release-source-

When one is young, he waits for his retirement to get released from the daily routine and live on his pension without any financial worries. But as soon as he gets old, he starts realizing the drawbacks that one has to face after getting retired. In most of the cases, the pension that the retirees receive is insufficient for meeting their essential needs. House equity release scheme has been designed to make the life of the senior citizens comfortable during their retirement phase. Many sources exist to lend their hands to the old aged individuals so that they can continue living with the similar standard that they used to follow prior to their retirement. Release equity in home provides them an opportunity to earn extra money besides receiving their monthly pension.

One is eligible to enroll for the house equity release if he has a home ownership, minimum age required and a well-maintained household. The lenders allow the old couples to stay within their own property, while earning in lieu of it. The lenders never ask them to leave the property until they desire to do so. They might leave it as soon as they get other convenient accommodation or live within their house till their last breath. Release equity in home is the facility that gives the old home owners a fair chance to enjoy a tax free income in addition to what they get as their pension. This extra source of income, however, really help them to cater to all their needs and desires.

As soon as you apply for the enrollment to these house equity release programs, the lender would approach you for the supervision of your property. Based on the maintenance level of your household asset, he will decide the amount to be given to you. In short, the value of your property will determine the amount to be received by you after getting enrolled to these release equity in home schemes. The more is your property value, the heftier your receivable amount will be. One of the basic reasons that drive the pensioners towards these plans is to make sure that whether the property of liable to pay off the debt in case the property owners fail to repay.

The old property owners are completely free to make their repayments whenever they feel it convenient and affordable. They can pay back the release equity in home amount when alive and even after their death through their household. As soon as the old homeowners die, the right and hold on the asset gets transferred to the lenders and they are then free to sell it to get their amount back inclusive of interest. Even the expected heirs are not allowed to inherit the asset as it belongs to the lenders as per the terms of the house equity release agreement.

Hence, if you want to earn more after your retirement through the scheme of release equity in home, you must focus on the maintenance of your household from time to time. The value of your property is the sole factor that influences the amount that is to be received by you during the phase of your retirement.

Check The Best Interest Rate Before Buying A Mortgage Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/check-the-best-interest-rate-before-bu

You can be offered very different house loan mortgage rates by different loan companies. Checking the mortgage lending companies to find out which ones have the cheaper mortgage rates of interest can save you lots of dollars long term. Every little bit that you can save will help.

Write down the interest rates of all the mortgages that you can find next to the name of the lender. The rates will not be too dissimilar to the ones you hear on the television on a daily basis. Wall Street stock exchange rates ultimately will determine the level of interest us property owners pay.

The sum that you can afford to borrow can be calculated by a combination of your personal once a month available earnings and the interest rate that you will be charged. Then look at the amount you have for a deposit and it is possible to determine the value of home that you must start searching for.

Any time that home interest rates are high indicates that you might ought to settle for a smaller home or even one that is less expensive as it needs some work doing to it.

You will notice that the smaller the percentage of the value of the house that you are purchasing is being borrowed, the lower the rate that the mortgage lender will offer to you. If at all possible you will need to come up with something more than twenty five % of the buying price to get a good deal on loan rates

.

Also, obviously you would have a smaller loan so the repayments would be more manageable too. You will reap huge long term benefits if you can start putting some money aside for your deposit as quickly as possible. Another major factor that will affect your monthly payments is the term of the mortgage loan. The more years that you take to settle your mortgage, the higher that the interest rate is likely to be.

I hope that you can imagine the vast amount of extra interest you would pay if you had to pay even just 1% extra on your interest rate for thirty years rather than 1% less for 15. It can work out at tens of thousands of extra dollars that the mortgage company get from you.

When you are comparing prices ensure that you compare the same stats. Read all the fine print as the terminology used in the home loan field is rather confusing sometimes.

The last but possibly most important thing to consider is whether you want to opt for a variable rate mortgage or a fixed rate mortgage. You should decide whether you think that the average mortgage rate will go up or go down over the period of your mortgage.

A fixed rate of interest house loan will give you the comfort of being able to budget your money better as the monthly amount you pay continues to be the same. With the variable rate you could find yourself having to pay large sums extra month to month. They say that you pay your money and take your chance. The chance that home loan mortgage rates will go down and go on

how to start a small business

STEP 1 Business Ideas
To start a business you will need to choose or create a business idea. While this is an obvious step many people who want their own business don't have an idea, just the desire to be an entrepreneur. For the budding entrepreneur, there are many options; buying a franchise or an existing business, or looking to others for ideas for a start-up business. Once you have decided on the business you wish to start, then the real work begins.

STEP 2 Business Plan
Writing a business plan is your next and most important step, this is how you and others will evaluate your business. When seeking financing the investors or lenders will want to read your plan before they supply you with funding. If you're financing the business yourself, you will still want to have a written plan to develop business strategies and financial projections. A key element within the business plan is the marketing plan, which explains marketing strategies that will be used to advertise and promote the products or services. The goal setting steps of the plan will help you to analyze the success of the business in future years and clearly illustrate the capital needed to operate the company to break-even.

STEP 3 Financing
With your business plan in hand, you are ready to go find yourself some capital. Most small businesses have three options for financing: friends & family, investors or bank loans. Each of these options has different considerations for the business. Investors and even friends & family usually want ownership and control of their portion of the business. Bank loans burden the business with an additional expense of the loan payment, which can erode the business profits.

STEP 4 Getting started12
You've got the plan, the money and the enthusiasm; you're ready, right? Not yet, as with everything you need to take the legal issues into consideration. First you should choose a legal structure: Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, or Corporation. Your financing decisions will have an effect on what legal structure you choose. Now you can file with the state to incorporate and obtain a federal Identification number.

STEP 5 Opening the Doors
Okay, it's time to get on the road to making some money; this of course means spending money. Where are you going to run your business? Will a home office do or is commercial space needed to service your customers? Do you need to hire employees to help you run the business? What are your bookkeeping needs, do you need an accountant? Finally, who could forget taxes, what taxes do you have to pay and collect? Now that your business is through the start-up phase, you can now look forward to the issues of managing a small business.

Why Search Engines Fail

Imagine asking a stranger for directions to a clothing store. Chances are, the stranger will tell you one of two replies. They'll direct you to the nearest clothing store they know of, or they'll send to to the last one they just passed. But you're looking for the latest Spongebob Squarepants kid's shirt. You didn't tell the stranger that, did you? Probably not. So, you got directions to the local Disney store, which of course, would not be selling any competitor's clothing.

How did this happen? Simple.

Like most of us, when we type something into a search engine, we just assume that the search engine knows what we mean. A computer can only do what we tell it to do, so that's why we may not get the desired results that we are seeking. Back when the 'Net was young (1990), you could get away with such simple phrases because there wasn't much content on the Internet as there is now. This is why when you're searching, be sure to be as specific as possible. The Search Engine's entire existance is to provide relevant and specific results to you, the user. Tell the engine more relevant phrases, and you will be rewarded accordingly.

Even when searching for a singular or plural version of something, you will get different results. Some words are even more complex. For example, if you enter "wheelchair", Google will tell you there are about 1.4 million results. Add a space, and now you have "wheel chair" and Google will tell you that there are about 4.6 million results! Now to even complicate matters more, if you enter "wheel chairs" there are only 760,000 results. Remove the space and for "wheelchairs" you now get about 1.2 million results.

How does this happen?

Remember, the search engines are programmed to try and deliver the best document for each given keyword/phrase. Through a complex algorithm, they mathmatically determine which page has the most relevant content. They do this for every possible keyword and phrase that they are aware of. This why you see such a disparity in the search results.

How can I rank for all of my similar keywords?

Glad you asked. One of the many factors used in determining keyword relevancy is proximity. By using the variations of the spelling in a logical manner - such as the example I presented above, describing the different ways it can be spelled - the search engines will use this to determine that since your page talks about these variations of wheelchairs, this page must be relevant. Of course there are many other factors involved, but for the sake of this discussion, that's all we need.

Why You Need Outbound Links

Just in case you've forgotten, an outbound link is a url that you have on your site that points to another website.

In today's Google PR obsessed Internet world, everyone is completely focusing on getting in bound links to your site. While you should always be on a mission to get more sites to link to yours, you must not forget their polar opposites.

Remember, by having outbound links from your site, you are in essence "voting" for the site you link to. This is part of the entire ranking algorithm process for all the search engines. The idea is, that if two sites are similar in content and design, a site with more links pointing to it would be considered more important by the search engine.

So then, why should you help out any other site? Actually, by carefully linking to other relevant sites, you are increasing the relevancy of your own site.

Pretend I have a pizza shop, and I am located in Anywhere, USA. It's a typical site that displays types of pizza, store location, hours, and coupons. I also know the power of outbound linking. For this case, I am going to link to 10 sites: Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns. Next, I link to 6 sites that are physically located in Anywhere, USA. (And their physical addresses are listed on their sites.)

Now, I will switch roles and view the site as a search engine spider. I navigate through the site, and determine that this site is about pizza. Then I find a resource page and discover some well-known links (Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns - and as the spider I know that these are major players in the realm of pizza). Next, I find 6 links to sites located in Anywhere, USA.

So, as a happy spider leaving the site, I now know that the site I just visited is about pizza (site content and links to the major players of the pizza industry), and that it is located in Anywhere, USA.

Next, I visit one of the 6 sites listed as a resource in Anywhere, USA. I find the local address, and it has the same zip code as the pizza site I was just at. Now I know how these two sites are related to each other.

Taking into account the fact that this local pizza shop has also linked to the major pizza chains, as the spider, I am lead to believe that this shop has relevancy to the zip code of Anywhere, USA.

So, as the spider returns the information to the database to be processed in the algorithm, it has pre-sorted some search results based on the links your site points to.

Another benefit of outbound linking is Geo Targeting, or Local search. There is a lot of speculation that local search is the next big trend in Search Marketing. While only time will tell, it won't hurt to have your physical address listed on your website for those who will be embracing local search.

As an experiment, I created a site with a very unique url (to avoid the possibility of people finding it by accident), and I made it only 1 page long. The only thing the page consisted of were 80+ outbound links to relevant sites in the SEO industry, tools, forums and some tutorials. When the PageRank was first updated for the site, it came out of the box with a PR of 3. It has since fallen to a PR of 2 (now that I’ve pointed a few sites to it!).

The whole point of this experiment was to see how outbound links affect your own rankings of your site. I was able to generate a PR of 2 based entirely on linking to authority sites in the SEO industry. So, take the time to link to some relevant sites, the big names (if any), and enjoy the power of the easy, outbound link.

Search Engine Breakdown

Ever notice that performing the same search on the major engines gives you different results? Yes, some of it is because of the algorithms and how the engines use different factors in their rankings, but pay attention to the results and a pattern has emerged.

For the sake of being fair, Ask has been included since they do serve up results in a slightly different manner. So here's how the engines shake out:


Google:

• Information Engine
• Loves Wikipedia and the results show it
• Relies heavily on trust factors (see Google Trustrank)

Yahoo:

• Social Engine
• Many results have ebay listings (a Yahoo partner), del.icio.us (Owned by Yahoo) and Flickr results (Owned by Yahoo)
• Tries to incorporate Yahoo Answers into many results

MSN:

• Product Engine
• Almost always has results for product based searches not found in the other engines
• Starting to use more Wikipedia results as their algorithm matures

Ask:

• Clustering Engine
• Their results try to give you all the surrounding information around your search term
• Trying to get into the mindshare of America

So, as you can see, each engine does provide a different slice of information depending on your search need. Keep this in mind when you are not only looking for something, but when selecting the keyphrase you want to be ranked for.

-To your online success!

What are YOU Worth

No, I am not talking about how much you make, or what you're assets are worth. I am not talking about how much you could get freelancing out in the big bad world either.

What I am talking about is how much do you bring to the table.

Thank about this scenario:

You want to start your own SEO/SEM conference event. So, you start to call all the speakers at past events. Almost everyone turns you down because they've never heard of you. You may get some people who feel bad and will sheepishly commit if other "big names" do the same.

Now, pretend you're Danny Sullivan. When he contacts people to speak at the conferences, the only pushback he might get is limiting people to how many sessions they can speak at.

See the difference?

Sometimes deals are made based on what you are known for (reputation capital). These opportunities do not happen by accident. When a deal is completed because of the "You" factor, think about the time you've spent responding to emails, posting to forums and blogs that have lead you to building up your name.

All those actions shaped your reputation capital.

I know in today's word it's easy to bash the silly questions and make fun of others who aren't as technically advanced - but keep in mind that just about everything that gets posted to the web leaves a trail, and when a major deal is taking place, big companies hire plebes to find any dirt they can about who you are - just to disqualify or discount you.

So remember, no one is an overnight success; it takes years of persistence and a belief in what you are doing and most importantly, consistency in delivering your point of view.

It's not always easy, but don't ever let your value decrease.
-To your online success!

Gut Genug SEO

For those unfamiliar with the German language, "Gut Genug" translates to "Good Enough".

Ever run into this situation? Maybe you've been fortunate enough that you are swamped with client work, and you have to do the bare minimum to get by. Instead of getting 50 links for the keyphrase that is most important, you only get 10.

Many times, when trying to get some work done, it is the client that impedes the progress. At that point, it's not your fault. But if you know that you could be doing more, are you really servicing the client?

The arguement could be made to say that if a client is only paying a certain amount, they should only get a certain amount of service. I can't argue that. But at some point the question needs to be asked: Are you providing value to your client? Or just taking their money?

So, enough about the rant. These situations do occur, and as I thought about it, I came up with a list of what would be gut genug:

(All of these are on a per month basis)

• 10 keyword-rich text links for each keyphrase
• 5 directory links for each keyphrase
• A review of the copy on the targeted pages
• A review of the page titles and meta tags
• Inform client on any changes in the search space
• Provide insight for client's search marketing strategy
• Be a protector of the client brand

I know this is not a complete list, but it's certainly "good enough" for most clients...
-To your online success!

Manage and Monitor Your Online Reputation

ust this past week, another strong brand was caught in the midst of an online controversy. The brand victim, Starbucks. Employees at a Miami Starbucks posted inappropriate photos of Starbucks customers online using the social media tool Flickr. Now, Starbucks is well known in the social media space, they have several followers on Twitter, so how did this happen?

A few months back the same thing happened to another company. I won’t go into details, because if you didn’t see the video, I don’t want to make you lose your lunch – let’s just say there were two employees of Domino's Pizza doing very unhygienic things to the pizza they were preparing. It made national news and the video on YouTube received over 1 millions views. The video threatened the reputation of a brand that had been developed by a company for 50 years.

Don't be mistaken,just because you are a business and you are not using social media, don't think that your brand can't be hurt by it if you are not paying attention. The reality is, whether or not you are participating in social media - you are playing. Your brand in some way or another is being represented,either by you as a company, by your customers or by your employees.

Monitoring major social media platforms and solving issues that reflect poorly on your brand is one of the most important parts of any company's social media effort. As a business, the most important thing to remember is that even if you are not using social media, you need to be aware of what’s going on in the social media realm when it comes to your brand. It doesn’t pay to turn a blind eye and, by doing so, it can, ultimately, be a detriment to your success.

We've all heard of brand monitoring and many of us, especially small to medium sized businesses, in the past haven't seen the need. We'd just treat customers well and give them what they need and they'd tell their friends and family. Now that we have the internet and social media, it’s even more important to monitor our reputations, especially as business owners. I always remind the clients with whom I consult that it’s not just seven people one person will tell about your services, now it’s in the millions. This is especially true with the social media tools that are available and widely used, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

I don’t care if you don’t want to use social mediums to market your service or products, it’s more vital than ever to at least have an awareness of what’s being said within the social media realm about you, your brand, your products and your services. Sticking your head in the sand will only hurt you not help you.

How Can You Monitor and Protect the Reputation of Your Brand?

• Step 1: Understand how the social media platforms work. Learn how to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace. Become familiar with their platforms. Take a few moments and read the terms of services and watch and learn how people are using these social media outlets.
• Step 2. Don’t assume that social media doesn’t affect you. When it comes to social mediums, there are not just thousands of users, there are millions. These users consist of your customers who are bloggers, influencers, columnists and public figures. These people are talking about companies. Are they talking about yours? You need to know this and you need to know whether the chatter is negative or positive.
• Step 3: Actively Protect Your Brand. There are many steps that you can use to do this. Register your brand names with the various social media platforms, (add comma here) this way you avoid the chance of them being hijacked by someone else.
• Step 4: Create a social media policy for your company. This means creating a plan that informs and educates employees on the company policy and guidelines of using social media. This policy should inform them as to what they should and should not discuss when it comes to the company. And other appropriate practices and procedures to follow, especially in the event of a crisis.
• Step 5: Always be aware. There is no excuse not to know what is being said. It’s important to always have your finger on the pulse of what is being said, whether it be positive or negative. You always want to know when someone is talking about your and your brand – ignorance is no excuse. Monitor the social media platforms.
• Step 6: Embrace the negative when necessary. Social media is a conversation and a dialogue, so be willing to embrace the negative and dialogue in public regarding the situation. This gives you credibility with other consumers.

There is still no action after audit slams SABC

Auditor-general Terence Nombembe has proved an exemplary example of independence, displaying fair-mindedness in his auditing decisions. No more so than when he found hundreds of millions of rands worth of alleged financial mismanagement and corruption in his special investigation into the SABC.

What a contrast he is to members of the parliamentary communications committee, who insisted this week on closing a hearing with the SABC - supposedly the public broadcaster - over which it has insight. While members of the parliamentary press gallery were squatting on the floor outside of the meeting room - waiting for a court order to end the closed meeting - I couldn't help thinking what a mockery it was to call it a "communications" committee.

What an irony that Parliament used the police to protect the MPs - from journalists! Whereas, they should have been deployed to protect transparency and the public pursuit of truth by MPs.

It is just short of a year since the damning auditor-general's report. Only in February was the Special Investigating Unit - headed by state crime buster Willie Hofmeyr - roped in to probe these allegations. One of the more extraordinary auditor-general's findings was that senior managers had notched up millions of rands of misuse of SABC petrol supplies, some surely requiring vehicles to be lined up all day to be filled up. It makes hiding behind closed doors by MPs deeply suspicious.

It has been a rough year for the SABC, with an interim board appointing - at the eleventh hour - Solly Mokoetle, as the chief executive, just before its handover to a new board headed by chairman Ben Ngubane.

Now it appears that all board members, with the exception of Ngubane, have turned against Mokoetle. He has been given notice of his suspension, in spite of protestations all along by Ngubane that "the factual situation is that all the non-executive board members accepted the new group chief executive", as he was reported saying to Sapa in January.

Then there is the saga of the appointment of Phil Molefe, a former parliamentary press gallery member, as the head of SABC news.

Before she left office as interim board chairwoman, billionaire businesswoman Irene Charnley said at the handover meeting that the interim board's core focuses were to stabilise the corporation after a severe financial crisis, leaving the broadcaster with a deficit last year of R900 million. She noted that the government had stepped in with a R200m additional injection and a guarantee of a further R1.4 billion. It was her board, however, which thrust Mokoetle into office.

The auditor-general's report last year was damning. He found 20 employees were directors or members of 20 companies or close corporations which received payments from the broadcaster to the tune of R3.4m. Few if any heads have rolled since. Four senior managers were suspended but their heads never rolled. What a pickle.