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Merchant accounts are an integral part of accepting and processing credit card payments through your web site, but failing to properly research your chosen merchant account provider can cost you – in a big way. By knowing how to spot merchant account problems before they happen, you can save yourself significant frustration as well as money.

“Too many Internet marketers don’t understand how merchant accounts work,” says Matt Bacak, a successful online marketer who trains speakers and authors. “When I first started out, I definitely didn’t understand them. First of all, I had no idea that your merchant account provider would freeze your account if you made what they considered to be too much money. I mean, I didn’t even know you could make too much money!”

But when it comes to many merchant accounts, it is possible to make too much money. Bacak had given his merchant account provider an estimate of what he expected to make each month. The holiday season brought in far more; in fact, within a few days Bacak had made more money than he’d expected to make in a year! Instead of reveling in his success, he soon found himself battling his merchant account provider for his earnings. “Apparently the amount was more than my merchant account could handle,” he says. “They froze my account and held my money until they could be sure that all of my customers had received their credit card statements in the mail. It ended up being six months before I got paid.”

With his merchant account frozen, Bacak was unable to continue selling his product online. With no way to process credit card payments, his business was quickly put on hold. “I went out and got another merchant account,” he says. “I now had two; I was under contract with the first one so I couldn’t just leave them. The new provider was happy to take me on, but not before charging me nearly 10% in fees on every sale I made. In the end they ended up just picking up and leaving, with $30,000 of my profits that I still have yet to recover.”

Armin Morin, an online marketer and entrepreneur who has made more than $15 million promoting and selling products online, is no stranger to merchant account problems. “My product brought in over $4 million over a very short period of time. My merchant account provider not only shut me down, but they went into my bank account and took more than $2 million from me! This was half my profits; money that was allocated to pay my affiliates. How can you run a business when half your profits are frozen? I hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet my money was gone.”

If your merchant account is frozen, your business will basically be dead in the water. You won’t be able to process credit card payments online any longer, putting your sales indefinitely on hold. Even worse, you may find that if you’ve had an account frozen in the past, other merchant account providers will be reluctant to take you on as a customer.

“Once they took my merchant account away no one else would take me on as a merchant,” says Morin. “After they took my money, my bank discontinued doing business with me as well. I had a check for over two million dollars in my pocket and no major bank would take me on because they didn’t want the hassle caused by my merchant account troubles.”

Aside from the potential for frozen accounts, online marketers need to be aware that merchant accounts often come with a host of fees. “One merchant account required that I pay $500 up front just to get started,” says Bacak. “That didn’t even include my Internet gateway.” Others will ask that you pay to lease their equipment in addition. If you buy the equipment on your own, it will only cost you a few hundred dollars; if you lease the equipment from your merchant provider monthly over the course of a three- or five-year contract, you’ll pay thousands.

Making Merchant Accounts Work For You

There are millions of online marketers successfully processing credit card payments through merchant accounts. Despite the worst-case scenarios described here, there are ways to avoid merchant account problems and maximize your online sales.

To avoid a frozen merchant account, seek out a provider that does not limit the amount of money you can accept over the course of each month. It will be difficult to anticipate the amount of money your web site will bring in, and if your provider asks you to estimate an amount, you could be setting yourself up for a problem down the line. Additionally, you need to be aware that many merchant accounts end up frozen not because of the amount of money coming in, but because the business in question veered from its original business plan.

“When you apply for a merchant account, you’re typically asked to present a business plan,” explains Morin. “If your original premise is too narrow, as in teddy bears, and then you decide to start selling Barbie dolls, your provider could shut you down because you’ve changed gears without their approval.”

Allowing yourself more flexibility in your business plan will give you the freedom to change your product line to better suit your customers. Instead of listening your premise as “jam,” list it as “food.” If you want to offer two products that are entirely different, you should have two merchant accounts, one for each product.

Additional merchant account problems crop up when your provider decides that you have reported too many charge backs. Charge backs occur when one of your customers refutes the credit card charge from your company and refuses to pay his or her bill. Morin says that this can be avoided entirely by offering outstanding customer service that includes quick and no-questions-asked refunds. “We refund people even if they don’t want to be refunded,” he says. “We contact every customer by phone or email to verify the sale. If we can’t contact them then we refund them. We don’t want to risk fraud, and we want our customers to know that we care about risk. I think it helps to build our credibility.”

You’re selling products online because you want to be successful. But when your merchant account is causing you frustration, your success can quickly translate into a very serious problem. By preparing in advance you will be able to quickly and easily process your customers’ payments while enjoying the financial success you so richly deserve.

Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is a powerful tool available to all individuals and companies that have a website. This is one of the most powerful web marketing services available to really improve your online visibility. With proper use of SEO, one can increase traffic to their website and turn a large number of visitors in to customers. It is advisable for anyone who does own an online business to invest in an SEO consultant to ensure that their services are performed in a proper manner and to their benefit.

SEO experts offer a wide range of services for their clients, from natural SEO to paid advertising. SEO consultants review the content that you have in your website and optimize the information. Then they obtain quality links to your site. It is important at this point to understand that the content of your website affects your ranking on a search engine such as Google. SEO requires that keywords and phrases be used in the webpage appropriately. The keywords should be used in titles and in the name of the website or URL if possible. SEO experts review the content of your website and advise you accordingly. They are able to determine whether you will be ranked high or low in a search engine by comparing the content of your webpage with the standards of the search engine. They should be able to also determine what is needed to beat your competition.

SEO consultants also offer advice on the development of a website. The advice that SEO experts give is just technical advice. It may include things such as who to approach for quality links to your website as well as how your content should be laid out to improve rankings.

SEO experts can also help you develop new content on your website that will really make a major impact in the search engines. As mentioned earlier, the content of your webpage plays a significant role in the ranking of your site in the search engines. The content also matters when you desire to make sales; you must have a well-written and marketed page to sell your customers. When you have reached your goal of attaining top search ranking, you will be receiving plenty of traffic if you targeted quality terms. This is definitely needed to succeed online. Receiving plenty of traffic is not the end of SEO; you can constantly improve by branching off in similar terms by using synonym search phrases and other tactics to find more customers. It is important that you are able to sell your services or products online. SEO consultants can also help you meet your online goals by helping you develop the content of your website so that your visitors will actually buy your products or services.

Keywords are very important to research and focus on when hiring someone for these services. SEO experts deal with search engines and understand how they work. They keep track of algorithm changes and are always open to the latest advice in optimizing for the search engines. These consultants therefore need to know how to research and capitalize on keywords directly related to your website. SEO consultants can offer to perform keyword research on your behalf to help you grab those top rankings. Their research is aimed at what people look for when making searches in the field your website is in. They then use these keywords in your webpage content as well as in links pointing to your website. Your website’s external links make a huge impact on your ranking in the search engines.

Some SEO experts offer training in the field of SEO. They can give you the skills that they have learned in SEO and pass on the knowledge to you. In so doing, you will be able to perform SEO for your own websites so that you can grab those top rankings more effectively.

A Consultant could be an expert about absolutely anything.

Calling yourself a “consultant” demands further clarification. A consultant who… What specific problems do you handle? And who needs what you know? Everyone? (Never true) Businesses selling to seniors? (A precisely defined niche) Success depends on how clearly you can define yourself and what you offer. How easily can potential clients understand it?

You provide clients more than your expert knowledge and problem-solving skills. Your delivery style (tricks) are every bit as valuable as your knowledge base. We all relate to some businesses (personally and professionally) more effectively than to others. Great match-ups require something akin to a mating call to help a consultant find and connect with ideal clients.

Every consultant is unique in important ways. Your challenge is to express those significant intangibles — so they set you apart from others using the same job title. Do clients understand what you can do for them? How you’re different from the competition? Why they’d prefer you?

Article Marketing is Your Ideal Stage

Whether you’re selling a service, speaking or training, nothing persuades like offering a sample. Writing articles that highlight your style and expertise does that for you. A meaty, 600 to 800 word article is long enough to deliver a tangible taste.

Once it’s widely posted, the message can be read by thousands. Some readers will search for what else you’ve said, or click over to your website. Writing repeated in-depth articles further establishes your niche, point of view, and expertise. They’re building your name recognition and readership in short order.

Your stock-in-trade is information, so packaging it into articles makes you a content creator. The Internet voraciously demands a steady diet of new material. Websites, ezines (and now blogs) efficiently deliver ideas to targeted readers. But sad to say, too many articles consist of rehashed, low-grade material. Stand out with fresh, professional-quality information. Being a cut above builds respect and trust — a must for doing business down the road.

Local Search can Further Define Your Market

Unlike a plumber or day care center, most consultants needn’t be confined to the local arena. Your Internet exposure connects you to a national or global audience, if that’s your goal. But if your target market is closer to home, articles still help to position you.

Recent research by The Kelsey Group show that 70% use the Internet to make local buying decisions. And nowadays, 36% of search engine queries request local search results. That means the person includes a geographic term in their search engine query. For example, a query with: “employee benefit consultant” + Denver only lists the small pool of appropriate Denver providers.

Every consultant needs to make sure their information appears in local search queries, [http://www.yellowpagesage.com/localsearch.html]. The trend toward local search is growing quickly. Businesses can easily be left out—which makes them unfindable by online searchers. Who can afford to miss 70% of their client base? Having your own website isn’t necessary — but still helpful for a variety of reasons.

Potential Clients will Check You Out Online

Surveys reveal that over half of respondents consider search engines a better source of buying information than Yellow Pages, newspapers or magazines. When someone enters your name or company into Google (in quotes), what comes up?

It helps if your name is unusual. If not, follow up with “search within results” for a qualifier term (like your specialty, “employee benefits”) to find your cites.

In just a few moments, searchers get a picture of your professional standing and scope of recognition. They’re likely to be swayed by what they see. Who mentions you, and what are they saying? What kinds of links come to your website? If you’ve been publishing articles, they’ll also show up — enhancing your credibility and incoming links.

In my own case, a Google search for my name showed about 100 cites before I started article promotions. Now that’s well over 3,000. So many cites boosted my website traffic and Page Rank as well.

If you haven’t gone “ego surfing” on Google for mentions of your name, you should. Because the public will. Make sure there’s plenty of stuff for them to find that does you proud.

Copyright 2005 Off the Page

Whether you are a private individual or a company, making use of financial management consulting services can prove very beneficial. These professionals have years of bookkeeping and accounting knowledge, which they use to provide you with a complete consultation service designed to help you maximize your cash flow and make necessary plans for financial growth moving forward.

The first benefit of any financial management consulting service, whether you are a private individual or a company, is that they help you plan and forecast for your financial future. These professionals will take a close look at your finances, your ledgers and your bank accounts. They will identify your assets and then work out an effective forecast based on what they see, helping you identify what to expect moving forward. They will also help you put a plan in place to meet the goals of the forecast, always working to improve your financial situation now and in the future.

The financial management consultants will take their time to analyses and assess your finances. As a private individual they will want to look at your bank statements, identify your spending, work on your income and expenditure. Analysis can help them pinpoint areas where you can reduce expenditure, while offing you a plan to help you build your financial products to achieve financial success in the future.

As a company, they will look at your bank balance and statements, they will identify your assets, they will work on your expenditure and then come up with effective ways to improve income and reduce expenditure, giving you a higher profit margin and an improved cash flow now and moving forward.

The financial management consulting service provider will also offer you effective and accurate reporting on a regular basis. They become your financial business partner, they will work with your in-house bookkeepers and accountants, ensuring that your company receives the most effective service, keeping you updated on progress, providing you with detailed reports and helping you when it comes time to appoint new suppliers, to ensure you continue to enjoy the best prices.

They will make certain recommendations. The benefit of them making recommendations is that their complete focus remains on helping you reduce your expenditure with ways to increase your income. As a private individual, you may not be able to increase your monthly income, but with the help of one of these consultants, you can make your money go further, even possibly making some good sound financial investment options to ensure your savings continue to grow at all times.

It is important that you pay close attention to some factors before you make any decisions and hire a financial management consultant. You want to choose a company that has years of industry knowledge and experience. The good news is that with cloud based solutions these days, you are not restricted to only hire the services of a company in your local area, you can choose a company anywhere in your country, which gives you access to the best management consultants that you can rely on and trust.

Ensure you do your homework, learning as much as you can about the company and the services they provide. Can they provide you with a complete financial management solution? Do they have an easy way for you to furnish them with essential financial information, such as a cloud based computer system? Do they guarantee accuracy and efficiency at all times? These are things you need to know to give you complete peace of mind when choosing your financial management consulting providers.

In the recent years, the small business industry has seen a massive boom. Many individuals saw their stars rise while some of them saw their stars plummet. It is true that initiating and running a small business is easier but there are a number of essentials that need to be focused on. People who fail in the small business industry are the ones who try and overlook the most important factors. It can give them a sneak peek of the quintessence factors of not only running a business but also being successful in it.

What exactly is small business management consulting?

Due to the nature of business, organization of projects can become a daunting task. Often entrepreneurs face such situations in which their clients are left disappointed. It is extremely important for the business owner to opt for management consulting services in order to be aware of the managerial aspects that are important for running a successful business. A small business management consulting firm can provide the business owner with strategies, tactics and the best practices of the industry. Also, one of the most significant issues discussed by consulting firms is of adapting to a Change. A Change is terminology is any change in consumer demands, the environment or a change within the organization such as hiring and firing employees and so on.

There are three major aspects of every business that are taken into consideration by firms to design an overall strategy for the business. Trends, changes and consumer demands are the three factors. Working on all these three factors, a consulting firm designs an overall organizational and operational strategy for the business to follow.

Who should opt for a business management consulting service?

Generally, any business whether it is a mid-sized one or a small one must go through the consultation process in order to know the areas that need to be focused on and why. They might not look as important initially but in the longer run, these minor factors make it impossible for the business to succeed. Every entrepreneur wants their business to succeed so a little professional help can go a long ways.

Using a service to help you manage or grow your business is sometimes hard to do. In many cases people are protective of this companies and they let pride get in the way. Those who take the leap of faith and decide to get professional help are those who are ready to take the steps towards success.