Let Your Visitors Build Your WebsiteWritten by Stephen Bucaro
---------------------------------------------------------- Permission is granted for below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and byline, copyright, and resource box below is included. ----------------------------------------------------------Let Your Visitors Build Your Website By Stephen Bucaro Building and maintaining a website is a lot of work, especially if you are a one-person operation. Along with technical design and maintenance of website, you have to manage content, advertising, and promotion. The most important component of your website is content. Content gets your website listed in search engines. Search engines bring traffic to your website. Without traffic, you can't generate revenue. But creating and posting content is difficult and time consuming work. Wouldn't it be nice if you could get your website's visitors to post content for you? You can! What type of content can your visitors post? - Articles - Classified ads - Ebooks - Forum messages - Photographs - Poetry - Recipes - Reviews I'm sure you can think of many more possibilities. The ultimate visitor built website is an auction site. But an auction site requires expensive and complex software and advanced administration. You might prefer one of lower maintenance options. The idea is, you let your visitors provide content while you focus on tasks more directly related to generating revenue, like advertising and promotion. There are two ways to let your visitors post content. - Submit for your approval - Direct posting to your website The second option requires visitor to setup an account before posting. Then, if that user posts blatant advertising or inappropriate material, you can delete material and cancel that users account. Websites that allow direct posting are constantly under attack by abusers who post blatant advertising. You might find first option, reviewing each submission and posting yourself, to be less work in long run.
| | Virtual Professionals - 2003 Snap ShotWritten by Eileen 'Turtle' Parzek
Virtual professionals are a relatively new phenomena in workforce, and all indications are that it could potentially become norm in 21st century. The information age presented technology that allows people to work for anyone, anywhere, assuming right infrastructure is in place. Although some of us were working virtually prior to turn of century, a full eighty percent did not begin working that way until 1999. This wave corresponds with availability of computer technology and affordable, high speed Internet access. Nearly everyone interviewed was owner or co-owner of their own business, and nearly seventy percent of these virtual professionals became entrepreneurs simultaneously with becoming virtual professionals. So, who are these virtual professionals? The majority of people working virtually were in 36 to 45 year old range, with twenties close behind making nearly eighty percent between 25 and 45 years old. Although survey was conducted across a broad range of business related forums, a number of respondents said they were virtual assistants (VAs), a relatively new industry in its own right. Building on concept of secretaries and administrative assistants in traditional workforce, VAs perform business services and administrative tasks for other professionals. Virtual professionals were also consultants, web designers, programmers, graphic artists and writers. The trades which typically are creative, intellectual and autonomous lend themselves to virtual professions. It will be interesting to see in future whether number of other professions entering virtual world grows to meet vast number of virtual assistants prepared to help them! Scott Allen, a multi-preneur and About.com Entrepreneurs Guide, managed distributed teams for an enterprise software company prior to setting out on his own. Suzette Flemming, Flemming Business Services, transitioned into her 100% virtual business from part time telecommuting as a teacher and office manager. Most virtual assistants worked in offices, as secretaries and assistants, and already had right skills to be able to deliver services before pulling plug and going to work virtually. Indeed, most virtual professionals had a career which in some way prepared them for this way of life and work - even Blaine Hilton, a computer consultant, said his brief stint as a carpet cleaner provided motivation for wanting to be self employed!
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