by Jeremy Gislason
Working from home is a great thing, no doubt about it. You can wear what you want. Keep you own hours. Eat and drink when you want. Surf the net without feeling like your boss is going to bust you. You don’t have to worry about commuting and all of the stress associated with bumper to bumper traffic. No annoying bosses to deal with anymore and you can take breaks when it suits you. In short, you control your own destiny.
All of those things are fantastic pros to owning your own business and working from home. However, there is a dark side. There is the tendency to get sidetracked from the work that generates a profit and puts food on your table to the work you would maybe rather do at the moment like build that deck in your back yard, work on your car, or ugh…do the laundry.
There is also the tendency to lose track of time researching for your business or taking care of tasks that may be better suited for a different time or even handled by a different person. All of these sidetracks, and many more, will take away from your daily productivity and essentially end up affecting your bottom line.
Here are 10 tips to help you stay on track and heading toward the profits you desire and deserve.
1. Organize everything. Having a system in place for your business, your home office, and your work time is essential to remain focused and productive. Develop a system of organizing your office files and your computer files. Make sure there is a place for everything including the stuff you got in the mail today. Some common file categories are:
• Expenses
• Bank accounts
• Receipts
• Customer files
• Contracts
• Payables
• Receivables
• Taxes
• Business entity documentation
• Marketing
• Copywriting ideas
On your computer it is often helpful to have a folder for every major aspect of your business with separate smaller folders contained inside if necessary. For example you could have a taxes folder on your computer with separate tax information stored in sub folders by date. Al l the tax information and documentation for each year would be stored in that year’s folder. The important thing to remember when developing a system of organization is to make sure that it is a system that will work for you, your business, lifestyle and needs. If it doesn’t you wont use it and it won’t do you any good.
2. Plan. Some people are planners and others are doers. To be a successful business owner, you have to be both. You have to plan it and then you have to do it. Plan your business, plan your year, plan your month, plan your week, plan your day. Task lists and project management systems are great tools for the day to day, month to month type planning. For longer range annual planning you will want to go back to your business plan and review, revise, and reassess it annually.
Goals are much easier achieved if you set out a plan to achieve them. This includes the small daily goals like calling that contact about that new joint venture idea you have. I’m sure you have already heard this, but good goals are measurable, relevant, timely, and attainable.
3. To do lists. To do lists or task lists as we talked about in #2 are essential to keep you on task and focused on your goal. Task lists also help keep you organized and they help you prioritize your day. If you’re like me, then they help to motivate you too. There’s something satisfying about crossing an item off of your task list, and conversely something terrifying about watching that task list grow and grow while doing nothing to shorten it and keep it under control.
4. Automate what you can. One of the fantastic things about working from home and owning an online business is that there are so many wonderful tools available to help make our lives easier. There are autoresponders and electronic shopping carts. Web tracking statistics and article submission software programs. Heck, there are even task list programs that will email you your task list for the day! Automating certain tasks will help take the burden off of your shoulders and free up your time to spend on more important tasks.
5. Keep real hours. One of the pitfalls of working from home is the tendency to work 12 hours a day. I know you’re thinking no way, I wouldn’t do that, but it happens and your friends, family, and even your pets suffer the consequences. You do too. All work and no play makes ….well you know the rest. Even if you LOVE your job, it is important to step away from it. Keep real hours. 9-5, 8-4, 10-6 it doesn’t matter. Do whatever works best for you and your business but when it comes time to clock out and eat dinner with your family – do it. Work isn’t going anywhere but your family is.
6. Let it go. This goes back to #5. When the horn blows and it’s time to turn off the computer and go to your child’s choir concert, be there with them in the moment. If your mind is at home thinking about the task you didn’t quite finish or the project you’re starting tomorrow, you’re not truly with your child.
7. Track your hours. Tracking the hours you work and the time it takes to accomplish certain tasks can be an eye opening experience. You may find that the copywriting you think is only taking you an hour a day is actually taking you two. You may also find that your administrative tasks are taking significantly less time than you thought they were or that answering emails consumes half of your day. Tracking your time is essential if you want to later determine the value of it.
8. Plan your admin time. Use the time of day that you are most productive for the tasks that are important to your business. You can easily handle your administrative tasks during the time of the day when you’re unable to focus as well or are likely to have more interruptions.
9. Outsource what you can. Since there are only 24 hours in a day and 5 days in a working week, it may not be possible to get everything done. If you can fit it into your budget to outsource some of the more time consuming, and less appealing tasks, it may be worth your while to do so. Particularly if your time would be better spent on tasks that generate revenue.
10. Identify your time stealers. Everyone has time stealers. Some get easily distracted by email. Others find themselves spending too much time networking online or researching. You likely know what your time stealers are. If you don’t track what you do during the workday and how much time you spend doing it. The results will be interesting.
Once you know where you’re losing time, you can take measures to eliminate it. For example, if email is stealing your time, schedule checking your email into your task list in the morning, at lunch and near the end of the day. That way you’re not responding to every new email in your inbox.
Working from home is a joy but it takes a bit of structure and discipline if you want to be productive. Using these ten tips as guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to a productive, and profitable future.
Discover a breakthrough audio management software to provide downloadable or streaming audio for your visitors and members. With this, you can provide your members with great content, or simply create a music store-style site with paid and free access. For more info, go to: http://www.memberspeed.com/Audio_Content_Management/Software.html
Source: site-reference.com
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Does Google PageRank Count Anymore?
by Titus Hoskins
Being a full-time SEM (Search Engine Marketer) I have been conditioned like Pavlov's dog (not a pretty picture) to jump every time Google twitches. Lately Google has been doing a lot of twitching.
Specifically, the rather startling news from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa that Google has ditched PageRank from Webmaster Tools.
"We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," states Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it." (Source: WebProNews)
Now, for SEO reasons or for ranking in Google's index, PageRank has long been eunuchified by Google. However, even missing a few dangling bits, history has shown us, eunuchs still wheel tremendous power. PageRank is no different.
Regardless of what Google wants to happen, PageRank is still extremely important to anyone marketing on the web, especially if you're selling SEO services or operating a web business. Try selling SEO services when that little green bar on your site is pointing to PR0 or worst yet, pointing to a solid gray bar.
Obtaining a high PR7 or PR8 simply means more business and revenues... regardless of how Google is or is not using PageRank. People know how to count and they learned long ago, a ten is a lot more than a big fat zero.
Placed against a PR1 site, a PR8 will win more respect in the eyes of potential clients and can produce enormous profits for the site owner and we won't even mention the still widely practiced habit of selling links, which Google is desperately trying to stop. Total and full elimination of PageRank would be an honest start but it will still be an uphill, if not an unwinnable battle, for Google to fully eliminate link selling.
Even with my modest sites, I have turned down a small fortune by not selling text links on any of my sites. When I had a PR6 site instead of a PR4 - those link requests were nearly doubled. So one can easily understand Google's position and the need to downplay PageRank, if they want to put even a small dent in all this link selling and buying, which is still running rampant on today's web.
PageRank is Google's creation, and unless they remove it fully from their system and the Google toolbar, then PageRank still Counts. Actually, in the whole scheme of marketing your website on the net, PageRank counts big time. And in more ways than one.
There are several reasons why you shouldn't count PageRank out.
For years Google has been downplaying the important of PageRank and states it's only one of about 200 ranking factors which determines how Google ranks its index for keywords. Obtaining top organic rankings for popular lucrative keywords in Google simply means money in the bank. Actually, even a movement of only one or two places on those first page SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) can make a major difference to any online marketer's bottom line.
Now while you can have a lower PR number and still rank above other higher PR pages for your chosen keywords, I have even had many times when my PR drops but my actual SERPs rankings in Google goes up, mainly due to building related relevant backlinks. So PageRank counts little towards your keyword rankings but it can't be totally dismissed.
Mainly because, even if PR is just one ranking factor, in close competitive keyword battles (I am presently fighting tooth and nail for some very choice keywords) just one ranking factor such as high PR can make the difference of whether or not you get to the top spot. Big dogs are still jumping and for those of us who know how to count, getting a number one spot in Google makes all the difference in the world.
Not only because Google controls roughly 80% of all search engine traffic, but more importantly Google has established unmatched credibility and brand recognition in the eyes of potential customers visiting your site. Web users trust Google. Web users look to Google for guidance and direction. Web users believe what Google is telling them. In the online world, rightly or wrongly, perception is everything.
As an online marketer, I am completely amazed each day at the marketing power Google now commands with web surfers and with the general population. Google is king of online search and no other search engine even comes close to Google.
PageRank is Google's ranking system, and in the eyes of those who notice these things, it still wheels tremendous influence and power. By default, PageRank is Google's opinion of your site, and web users can count (at least to 10) and if Google believes people are still not counting when it comes to PageRank, then they are fully mistaken.
The author is a full-time professional online marketer who has numerous niche websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com or here: http://www.bizwaremagic.com 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins
Source: site-reference.com
Being a full-time SEM (Search Engine Marketer) I have been conditioned like Pavlov's dog (not a pretty picture) to jump every time Google twitches. Lately Google has been doing a lot of twitching.
Specifically, the rather startling news from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa that Google has ditched PageRank from Webmaster Tools.
"We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," states Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it." (Source: WebProNews)
Now, for SEO reasons or for ranking in Google's index, PageRank has long been eunuchified by Google. However, even missing a few dangling bits, history has shown us, eunuchs still wheel tremendous power. PageRank is no different.
Regardless of what Google wants to happen, PageRank is still extremely important to anyone marketing on the web, especially if you're selling SEO services or operating a web business. Try selling SEO services when that little green bar on your site is pointing to PR0 or worst yet, pointing to a solid gray bar.
Obtaining a high PR7 or PR8 simply means more business and revenues... regardless of how Google is or is not using PageRank. People know how to count and they learned long ago, a ten is a lot more than a big fat zero.
Placed against a PR1 site, a PR8 will win more respect in the eyes of potential clients and can produce enormous profits for the site owner and we won't even mention the still widely practiced habit of selling links, which Google is desperately trying to stop. Total and full elimination of PageRank would be an honest start but it will still be an uphill, if not an unwinnable battle, for Google to fully eliminate link selling.
Even with my modest sites, I have turned down a small fortune by not selling text links on any of my sites. When I had a PR6 site instead of a PR4 - those link requests were nearly doubled. So one can easily understand Google's position and the need to downplay PageRank, if they want to put even a small dent in all this link selling and buying, which is still running rampant on today's web.
PageRank is Google's creation, and unless they remove it fully from their system and the Google toolbar, then PageRank still Counts. Actually, in the whole scheme of marketing your website on the net, PageRank counts big time. And in more ways than one.
There are several reasons why you shouldn't count PageRank out.
For years Google has been downplaying the important of PageRank and states it's only one of about 200 ranking factors which determines how Google ranks its index for keywords. Obtaining top organic rankings for popular lucrative keywords in Google simply means money in the bank. Actually, even a movement of only one or two places on those first page SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) can make a major difference to any online marketer's bottom line.
Now while you can have a lower PR number and still rank above other higher PR pages for your chosen keywords, I have even had many times when my PR drops but my actual SERPs rankings in Google goes up, mainly due to building related relevant backlinks. So PageRank counts little towards your keyword rankings but it can't be totally dismissed.
Mainly because, even if PR is just one ranking factor, in close competitive keyword battles (I am presently fighting tooth and nail for some very choice keywords) just one ranking factor such as high PR can make the difference of whether or not you get to the top spot. Big dogs are still jumping and for those of us who know how to count, getting a number one spot in Google makes all the difference in the world.
Not only because Google controls roughly 80% of all search engine traffic, but more importantly Google has established unmatched credibility and brand recognition in the eyes of potential customers visiting your site. Web users trust Google. Web users look to Google for guidance and direction. Web users believe what Google is telling them. In the online world, rightly or wrongly, perception is everything.
As an online marketer, I am completely amazed each day at the marketing power Google now commands with web surfers and with the general population. Google is king of online search and no other search engine even comes close to Google.
PageRank is Google's ranking system, and in the eyes of those who notice these things, it still wheels tremendous influence and power. By default, PageRank is Google's opinion of your site, and web users can count (at least to 10) and if Google believes people are still not counting when it comes to PageRank, then they are fully mistaken.
The author is a full-time professional online marketer who has numerous niche websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com or here: http://www.bizwaremagic.com 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins
Source: site-reference.com
Building Backlinks With Submission Sites - What You Should Consider
Buzz up!Building Backlinks With Submission Sites - What You Should Consider
by Cristian Lungu
As you probably know, a good source of backlinks is using Directory Submission, Press Releases, Articles, Forums. Still, this method fails in providing quick PageRank boost due to the fact that Google takes into account only one inbound link from a certain root domain.
Basically you'll get the PR benefit from a submission platform just through the first link pointing back to your website; the future ones are only useful for generating traffic.
Another deficit is represented by the considerable amount of work that must be invested in order to see results in your traffic reports.
But then again, there is no such "magic formula" that will guarantee you dominate your niche in SEO instead, it is required to have a well thought out strategy for doing this; and submission platforms must be taken into account.
Getting backlinks from submission sites is an indispensable method, especially if you're starting out and have no link juice to share or trade with your potential link partners.
Making the most out of this link resource is the reason why I wrote this article. Let us start.
Guidelines to submitting your business website to submission directories
There is no doubt we are witnessing a downfall in directory submission quality, but there are still a handful of them that are worth submitting your business to, such as Yahoo Directory, DMOZ, Best of the Web, Gimpsy and Search Sight.
Here is how to do it:
1. ensure that your website has a professional design;
2. test for broken links; major flaw, that diminishes the chances your website is accepted;
3. test for broken images;
4. link the Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Return Policy, Shipping Information and Guarantee to your home page;
5. insert a recent copywriting notice on every page of your site;
6. give a realistic description of your site and always deliver what you promise; for radical updates in your website, make the necessary changes in its description;
7. vary your description throughout multiple submission directories, but don't affect the essence;
8. don’t keyword stuff your website’s title or description tag;
9. respect the guidelines for each submission directory;
10. choose the category which best describes your website’s niche;
11. go for regional categories if your business permits; the "regional" in every niche has high acceptance rates.
Guidelines for building backlinks with press releases
The results you get with a press release campaign depends on those who pich up the press release. Press release are a great source of one way backlinks. Here’s what you should consider:
1. a smart way for writing press releases is to customize an existing article from your content pages and make it more newsworthy;
2. use an impersonal and objective tone in your writing; advertisments and subjective opinions will not get editorial staff’s approval;
3. direct reader’s attention to your website as a source of complementary information on the topic;
4. preferably, work with paid directories; the free ones have major disadvantages such as no-follow links or no link submissions at all. I recommend using PRWeb, PRLeap, PRWeb Direct and 24-7 PR.
Getting backlinks from forums
Search for those that allow links and do-follow links.
Also, be sure to avoid counter-productive behaviour like terrible typos, solid rocks of text, poor headlines, excessive quoting, “pimping” signature files, pushing links and philosophical replies, to name just a few.
Guidelines to follow when using Article Submissions to build backlinks
Another great way of getting one way backlinks to your website, limited only by frequency and quality of the work you put into it.
Here is a short starting guide:
1. chose a topic related with a broad category or page in your website;
2. make your article between 400 and 800 words. Evenly distribute your targeted keywords across the body text;
3. make your content extremely informative but incomplete;
4. composes an incentive resource box with a backlink to your targeted webpage having as an anchor text the keyword you’re optimizing the page for;
5. submit your article to directories with high PageRank and most importantly, with high traffic volume, a.k.a. Alexa Ranking. The top 50 A.D.s can be found at: vretoolbar.com (/) articles (/) directories.php#
Before you passionately check your traffic stats, make sure you've submitted at least 25 articles (per directory, if you're also interested to know which directories produce results). Massive traffic can be obtained once you've accumulated around 250 articles.
If you have a handful of highly trafficated articles, consider starting a linking campaign for them and improve their authority in SEs. This will be reflected on your targeted webpages.
Other alternative backlink sources can be sponsoring and advertising on blogs, joining charity groups and, highly profitable, establishing cooperative relations with dot.orgs and dot.edus websites.
Remember to supplement the links obtained with submission sites by creating profitable relationships with quality backlink partners.
The complete process of building backlinks is covered in detail on my blog, TrafficCpanel.com. Make sure you take advantage of it with no cost from you're part.
About the author: Cristian Lungu is a network Marketer constantly perfecting his skills. He writes http://trafficcpanel.com/
Source: site-reference.com
by Cristian Lungu
As you probably know, a good source of backlinks is using Directory Submission, Press Releases, Articles, Forums. Still, this method fails in providing quick PageRank boost due to the fact that Google takes into account only one inbound link from a certain root domain.
Basically you'll get the PR benefit from a submission platform just through the first link pointing back to your website; the future ones are only useful for generating traffic.
Another deficit is represented by the considerable amount of work that must be invested in order to see results in your traffic reports.
But then again, there is no such "magic formula" that will guarantee you dominate your niche in SEO instead, it is required to have a well thought out strategy for doing this; and submission platforms must be taken into account.
Getting backlinks from submission sites is an indispensable method, especially if you're starting out and have no link juice to share or trade with your potential link partners.
Making the most out of this link resource is the reason why I wrote this article. Let us start.
Guidelines to submitting your business website to submission directories
There is no doubt we are witnessing a downfall in directory submission quality, but there are still a handful of them that are worth submitting your business to, such as Yahoo Directory, DMOZ, Best of the Web, Gimpsy and Search Sight.
Here is how to do it:
1. ensure that your website has a professional design;
2. test for broken links; major flaw, that diminishes the chances your website is accepted;
3. test for broken images;
4. link the Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Return Policy, Shipping Information and Guarantee to your home page;
5. insert a recent copywriting notice on every page of your site;
6. give a realistic description of your site and always deliver what you promise; for radical updates in your website, make the necessary changes in its description;
7. vary your description throughout multiple submission directories, but don't affect the essence;
8. don’t keyword stuff your website’s title or description tag;
9. respect the guidelines for each submission directory;
10. choose the category which best describes your website’s niche;
11. go for regional categories if your business permits; the "regional" in every niche has high acceptance rates.
Guidelines for building backlinks with press releases
The results you get with a press release campaign depends on those who pich up the press release. Press release are a great source of one way backlinks. Here’s what you should consider:
1. a smart way for writing press releases is to customize an existing article from your content pages and make it more newsworthy;
2. use an impersonal and objective tone in your writing; advertisments and subjective opinions will not get editorial staff’s approval;
3. direct reader’s attention to your website as a source of complementary information on the topic;
4. preferably, work with paid directories; the free ones have major disadvantages such as no-follow links or no link submissions at all. I recommend using PRWeb, PRLeap, PRWeb Direct and 24-7 PR.
Getting backlinks from forums
Search for those that allow links and do-follow links.
Also, be sure to avoid counter-productive behaviour like terrible typos, solid rocks of text, poor headlines, excessive quoting, “pimping” signature files, pushing links and philosophical replies, to name just a few.
Guidelines to follow when using Article Submissions to build backlinks
Another great way of getting one way backlinks to your website, limited only by frequency and quality of the work you put into it.
Here is a short starting guide:
1. chose a topic related with a broad category or page in your website;
2. make your article between 400 and 800 words. Evenly distribute your targeted keywords across the body text;
3. make your content extremely informative but incomplete;
4. composes an incentive resource box with a backlink to your targeted webpage having as an anchor text the keyword you’re optimizing the page for;
5. submit your article to directories with high PageRank and most importantly, with high traffic volume, a.k.a. Alexa Ranking. The top 50 A.D.s can be found at: vretoolbar.com (/) articles (/) directories.php#
Before you passionately check your traffic stats, make sure you've submitted at least 25 articles (per directory, if you're also interested to know which directories produce results). Massive traffic can be obtained once you've accumulated around 250 articles.
If you have a handful of highly trafficated articles, consider starting a linking campaign for them and improve their authority in SEs. This will be reflected on your targeted webpages.
Other alternative backlink sources can be sponsoring and advertising on blogs, joining charity groups and, highly profitable, establishing cooperative relations with dot.orgs and dot.edus websites.
Remember to supplement the links obtained with submission sites by creating profitable relationships with quality backlink partners.
The complete process of building backlinks is covered in detail on my blog, TrafficCpanel.com. Make sure you take advantage of it with no cost from you're part.
About the author: Cristian Lungu is a network Marketer constantly perfecting his skills. He writes http://trafficcpanel.com/
Source: site-reference.com
Sunday, November 22, 2009
5 Ways to Reduce the Stress of Working Online from Home
by TJ Philpott
Working online from home seems to be the most picture perfect scenario anyone can imagine. Earning a work from home income obviously offers it advantages but with it comes a certain mental stress that is easily overlooked until you've actually experience it. With the growth and success many are achieving in online marketing more people are starting a small business in their homes. Although this does allow for folks to escape the traditional 'rat race' as we know it, these types of businesses are still fertile grounds for work related stress. No longer 'slaving away' in a 'formal' work environment no doubt offers its attractions but work is still work. The associated tensions and anxieties still exist and need to be addressed.
Due mainly to the solitude or isolation online entrepreneurs typically experience when working at home many stress related issues often go unnoticed. This can set the stage for even greater damaging effects if this stress is left unchecked.
Recognizing it does exist and can not be avoided here are 5 tips to help reduce the mental stress experienced when working at home.
Schedule Your Work Hours
It is important that you have predefined hours in which you conduct your work. Like a regular job you need start on time and avoid the habit of 'lingering' at work since it's right there in the home.
The hours that you set aside for work need to be maintained consistently. Don't allow the distractions/temptation of the home environment to disrupt this schedule.
Leave Work at the Desk
Once you've completed your work for the day walk away and forget about it. Having your work set up in the home may tempt you to 'sneak' in a little overtime since it is right there.
Discipline yourself to let work go till the next day. Whether you're aware of it or not you need the break to recharge your mind, energy and spirit.
Finding the Humor
As you know things don't always go according to plan so when the unexpected happens don't dwell on it but rather try to find the humor in it and let it go.
Schedule Personal Time
Schedule time for your personal life and maintain this schedule. It is important to maintain a 'balance' in your life between personal and professional pursuits in order to keep your mind and spirits healthy.
Realize that you personal endeavors are just as important, if not more so, then your profession since they better define who you are. Remember you work primarily to pay the bills so don't let this aspect of your life dominate you!
Consciously 'Slow Down'
Pay closer attention to your level of intensity as you work since subconsciously we have a tendency get too caught up in it leading to increased tension. If need be take the time to deliberately slow yourself down and take the 'edge' off. As your tension eases you will find your thoughts become clearer and your productivity increases.
Although working online from home does offer many freedoms it does not eliminate work related stress. When starting a small business in your home it is important to realize that stress could in fact take an even greater toll on you. Many online entrepreneurs enjoy earning a work from home income but also burn out quickly due to this stress. By consistently practicing the 5 tips we discussed above there is no reason you can't find long lasting financial success in the stress free environment of your home.
TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
For additional Online Success Tips
and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://affiliatequickstart.com/
Working online from home seems to be the most picture perfect scenario anyone can imagine. Earning a work from home income obviously offers it advantages but with it comes a certain mental stress that is easily overlooked until you've actually experience it. With the growth and success many are achieving in online marketing more people are starting a small business in their homes. Although this does allow for folks to escape the traditional 'rat race' as we know it, these types of businesses are still fertile grounds for work related stress. No longer 'slaving away' in a 'formal' work environment no doubt offers its attractions but work is still work. The associated tensions and anxieties still exist and need to be addressed.
Due mainly to the solitude or isolation online entrepreneurs typically experience when working at home many stress related issues often go unnoticed. This can set the stage for even greater damaging effects if this stress is left unchecked.
Recognizing it does exist and can not be avoided here are 5 tips to help reduce the mental stress experienced when working at home.
Schedule Your Work Hours
It is important that you have predefined hours in which you conduct your work. Like a regular job you need start on time and avoid the habit of 'lingering' at work since it's right there in the home.
The hours that you set aside for work need to be maintained consistently. Don't allow the distractions/temptation of the home environment to disrupt this schedule.
Leave Work at the Desk
Once you've completed your work for the day walk away and forget about it. Having your work set up in the home may tempt you to 'sneak' in a little overtime since it is right there.
Discipline yourself to let work go till the next day. Whether you're aware of it or not you need the break to recharge your mind, energy and spirit.
Finding the Humor
As you know things don't always go according to plan so when the unexpected happens don't dwell on it but rather try to find the humor in it and let it go.
Schedule Personal Time
Schedule time for your personal life and maintain this schedule. It is important to maintain a 'balance' in your life between personal and professional pursuits in order to keep your mind and spirits healthy.
Realize that you personal endeavors are just as important, if not more so, then your profession since they better define who you are. Remember you work primarily to pay the bills so don't let this aspect of your life dominate you!
Consciously 'Slow Down'
Pay closer attention to your level of intensity as you work since subconsciously we have a tendency get too caught up in it leading to increased tension. If need be take the time to deliberately slow yourself down and take the 'edge' off. As your tension eases you will find your thoughts become clearer and your productivity increases.
Although working online from home does offer many freedoms it does not eliminate work related stress. When starting a small business in your home it is important to realize that stress could in fact take an even greater toll on you. Many online entrepreneurs enjoy earning a work from home income but also burn out quickly due to this stress. By consistently practicing the 5 tips we discussed above there is no reason you can't find long lasting financial success in the stress free environment of your home.
TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
For additional Online Success Tips
and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://affiliatequickstart.com/
How to Get the Best Eye-Tracking Results for Your Website
by Dr. Philip Michael Zeman
Simply stated, someone who studies human behaviour and the brain (a Behavioural Neuropsychologist) can help you:
(1) select the best participants for an eye-tracking study,
(2) determine the number of participants required,
(3) design the eye-tracking task to get usable results,
(4) design task instructions, and
(5) understand how study results apply to the target population.
Why Having a Behavioural Neuropsychologist on Your Eye-Tracking Team is a Good Idea
I've had considerable experience with eye-tracking: constructing an eye-tracker from spare parts, creating calibration procedures, writing analysis software, and using the eye-tracker in multiple studies. Although my background is in engineering, more recently, I completed a PhD combining engineering, biology and psychology to create new tools to study brain activity and human behaviour. Since completing my PhD, I've seen my fellow engineers, computer scientists, and web gurus struggle to obtain clear, usable results from the latest and greatest eye-tracking equipment. In my opinion, the crux of their struggles lay in what they don't know about behavioural neuropsychology- the science examining the relationship between the human brain and human behaviour. While I can't quite call myself a Behavioural Neuropsychologist, I have trained with them and can describe some of the gotch-ya's of behavioural research. This article describes why including someone with experience in the field of Behavioural Neuropsychology on your eye-tracking team is a very good idea.
Tracking Your First Eye
Imagine if you will, that an associate of yours has just lent you an eye-tracker and you're keen on using it to optimize your web site. You want to know what people are looking at and you want to modify your web site based on this information. To investigate this, you sit a co-worker down in a chair in front of a computer and configure the equipment to track their eyes. Then you display your web site; the eye-tracker shows where they look when various pages appear. It also shows where you co-worker looks when they stare blankley ahead, confused and perplexed, asking you, "What should I do?". eye
Making Eye-Tracking Data Useful
While you might have been able to successfully track a few eyes while people viewed a few web pages, the process of obtaining useful eye-tracking results requires some thought and experience. Considerable thought and experience, actually. My recommendation is that you find someone who has a working knowledge of brain function and has done behavioural research to help you obtain useful data from your eye-tracker. This article is about why this is a good idea.
Let's assume that your goal is to optimize your web site; to get as many people who arrive on the site to make a purchase, or read about and digest an idea. Without getting into the details of what eye-movement and eye-gaze means, let's focus on the role of a behavioural neuropsychologist in the design of the actual 'experiment' that will help you optimize your web site.
The Role of the Behavioural Neuropsychologist
The behavioural neuropsychologist can help you get the most out of your eye-tracking study by helping you design the study correctly. They can do this because they have studied the science of behaviour and specialize in understanding the relationship between brain activity and human behaviour. They research WHY people do what they do, which is exactly what you want to find out! They can help you (1) select the best 'type' of participants, (2) determine the number of participants needed, (3) determine how to investigate the specific behaviours of interest, (4) design task instructions, (5) and understand how study results apply to the target population.
(1) Selecting the Best Type of Participants
When examining how people interact with their environment, the question always arises, "who are the best people to use for my study?" There are a number of human factors to consider including: expertise, gender, and the interest study participants might have in your product or service.people
� Expertise: training and experience. People often seem to have their own way of doing things and often it seems that you can predict what people will, or won't do, before they enter the room. My own experience with eye-tracking is that engineers generally do things way differently than 'normal' people. Similarly, my own neuropsychology colleagues, familiar with seeing the behaviour of students who study psychology, were at first amazed at the bizarreness of an engineering approach to completing standard behavioural psychology tasks. Engineers have been trained to apply algorithms to solve problems, and hence, their training and expertise affects how they behave in the real world. They apply strategies that are not typical of other populations. Hence, you might reconsider using an engineer in your study if you want to understand the average person. (Unless of course, you wish to understand engineers!)
� Gender: male versus female. Remember gender 'equality' movements of the past? Remember when we were told that males and females are the same? These days the data are telling us that the genders differ in many ways. Behaviourally speaking, it is not entirely clear whether or not these differences are simply the result of experience and training. A fun factoid that I recently acquired is that most behavioural rat research is conducted on male rats. I've been told that female rats are much more variable than males, and for this reason, it is harder to use them in research. My own experience with human study participants is that females are generally more variable than males (when it comes to spatial navigation). The take-home on this point is that there is a good chance that two similar studies, one with only males versus one of only females might have different outcomes. Always consider gender in your study.
� Interest in your product: interest versus indifference? If you're examining how people interact with your site, it is important to remember that people who are genuinely interested in your product will probably behave differently than people who are participating in your study simply for the ten or twenty dollars (a standard incentive to get participants in behavioural studies) you are giving them. Since the objective of a product site is generally twofold: (1) to sell to people who know and are loyal to the product, and to (2) convince people to buy your product who are new or are just 'surfing', you probably want both types of people in your study. You should probably examine the resulting eye-tracking data of each group separately so that you really get a feel for how features of your site relate specifically to each group.
(2) Determining the Number of Participants Needed
"How many people do I need in my study?" is another important question. This is a number that people always like to optimize because it directly relates to the cost of the study. You don't want too many people because that increases the cost of the study, but you want enough people so that you can be confident in the results.
� Variability of the group of people you selected. If you want to know about males, females, experts (engineers for example), non-experts (average human population), and those who are interested, and indifferent, you probably have quite a bit of variability on your hands. Variability in people generally leads to large variance in your results. Variance is something you want to strategically minimize to gain confidence in your results. Generally, it is best to be very specific about the question you are investigating and in your web site optimization goal. For example, you might shape your study to find out what engineers look at on your web site and then optimize your site for engineers. By doing so, you will probably require fewer participants to achieve your goal (particularly if those engineers you choose are male). By strategically selecting your participants, you can minimize the costs associated with your study.
� Confidence you need to have in the results. Determining how confident you need to be in your result can be a little confusing and it is often useful to simply follow conventional methods. Often 95% confidence is acceptable in behavioural research. This means that you can be confident that 19 in 20 people will act as the study results have predicted. This said, when dollars are the main concern, 99.9% confidence is better than 95% confidence because you don't want to risk making a poor design change to your site that results in lost income. However you must remember that getting 99.9% confidence might require many more study participants (increased study cost). A researcher who has experience doing behavioural research can help predict how many people will be required to attain required confidence levels.
(3) Deriving Usable Results from Eye-Tracking Datastatistics
Planning a study so that the resulting data can be easily analyzed, and usable results can be obtained is a fundamental skill of someone who has been trained in behavioural research. A Behavioural Neuropsychologist who has experience with eye-tracking can help solidify your goal of optimizing your website into some tangible research questions and apply the appropriate statistics to get the required answers.
� Formulating a statistically testable research question from the general requirement of web site optimization. Having some ideas about what comparisons can be made using an eye-tracker, and how to do the statistical analysis to answer specific research questions is a fundamental part of making all of this work. Let's consider a simple example where a web page has two links. Link A is on the left-hand side of the page and Link B is on the right-hand side of the page. You want to know if there is a real difference between how many people look at link A versus link B. From your web site logs (or Google Analytics data) you know that on average, more people click link B than link A.
However in this example, we are supplementing our click analysis using eye-tracking data to measure covert behaviour. Eye-tracking will tell us where people have looked and might tell us why people have not clicked. It is a safe assumption that people probably won't click on a link they have not looked at.
There are multiple possible research questions that may or may not include the factors of Gender, Expertise, and Product Interest described above. You might ask if there is a relationship between eye-gaze at A and B (how similar are they) and if there is a gender difference. For example, is there a relationship between the duration males look at A and the duration males look at B? Does this differ from females? Alternatively you might ask, is the latency from the time the web page appears on the screen to when males look at A and look at B different? Subtle differences in the specific question you are asking might require important differences in how the experiment is formulated and how the data collection is approached. The mechanism used to reveal information from the data in the cases described above is called hypothesis testing and it requires that the statistical test you do after data collection be known before the experiment begins.
� Finding information hidden in the data. One key advantage to having a neurospsychologist around is that they have used statistics to obtain hidden information from the data. For example, often unexpected results can be found by applying multiple types of statistical tests in a variety of ways on the data. This doesn't fit within standard hypothesis testing rules and regulations but it does help you understand your data and find effects that might be new to you. We can look for relationships between things like Gender, Expertise, and Product Interest with the eye-tracking data collected. For example, you might find that females look at B BEFORE they look at A and that this behaviour does not seem to be present in males. Now this is something potentially very useful for web site optimization and you can probably use this to improve your site performance. It would be unfortunate if money were spent on an eye-tracking study and important information, hidden in the data, was not uncovered because the appropriate statistical tests were not run to reveal it.
(4) Designing Task Instructions
A question that I have rarely been asked when talking with people about eye-tracking analysis of web sites is, "What instructions should be used to guide the actions of study participants?" The fact this question is asked so rarely suggests that it isn't on people's minds. Task instructions are very important. They are so important that there is a whole body of research specializing in how instructions affect what people do.
If you really want to study bona fide human behaviour, no instructions are best. However, a study with no instructions isn't realistic: you have to tell them something! Given that we want as little variability in the behaviour of study participants as possible, the ideal thing to do is to use the same instructions for all participants in the study. While this seems like a solid idea in theory, different peoples use and response to identical instructions is different ways. And this contributes to more variable data. For example, sometimes people don't understand the instructions given, they have their own interpretation of the instructions, or they forget what was said right after the instructions are given. This is variability that you probably don't want to appear in the final result of the study.
� Get an experienced professional to design your task instructions. A Behavioural Neurospsychologist who has had experience with these situations, has been trained to deal with the problems associated with task instructions. They have experience designing task instructions.
� Get an experienced professional to actually run study participants. These people are not necessarily Behavioural Neurophysiologists, but they have been trained to run study participants and know the value of doing things 'properly'. They have had experience 'guiding' people along when they have forgotten why they are there. They have 'already' made their mistakes and will hopefully spare you the headache of learning on your dime.
(5) Understanding How Study Results Apply to the Target Population
Finally, the last key element that I will talk about that a Behavioural Neuropsychologist can help you with is in understanding how the results of your study apply to the general human population. Said another way, it is very important that you know how your study applies to the population of existing and potential customers. A Behavioural Neuropsychologist will use all of his or her power and knowledge to design the study to represent your target population. When this is done correctly, the confidence numbers of 95% or 99.9% that describe the sample of the population used in the study can be applied to the target population of potential customers out there on the internet.
Summary and Conclusions
It is not sufficient to simply track eyes; what you need is a small study of what peoples' eyes do when they look at your web site. Partnering with someone who specializes in behavioural psychology (studies the relationship between brain function and human behaviour) can maximize your investment in eye-tracking. They will help you:
(1) select the best participants for the study,
(2) determine the number of participants required,
(3) design the task to get usable results,
(4) design task instructions, and
(5) understand how study results apply to the target population.
StepForth Web Marketing Inc. and I (Dr. Philip Michael Zeman) are currently investigating a partnership to offer eye-tracking analysis of web sites. In order to launch this new service and build our dossier we are willing to provide significant discounts for parties interested in having eye-tracking conducted on their site. We are accepting inquiries by email and phone - here is our contact information.
For more information about web marketing and web site optimization services see http://www.stepforth.com. For more discussion about Eye-Tracking and related brain activity analysis see http://www.brainandvision.com
-More Background-
What is Eye-Tracking?
Tracking eye-movement allows one to identify where people look on a web page. It shows: where people spend their time looking, the sequence in which people look at things on a page, what they do not look at, and reveals how visitors separate (or 'chunk') information on the screen.
Click here for YouTube on Brain Scan Technology Called MOST-EEG (Multiple Origin Spatio-Temporal Modeling)
Why is Eye-Tracking a Good Idea?
Many organizations are using eye-tracking to optimize their web site performance: to make information easier to find, and to increase web site conversions. These include: Microsoft, Xerox, The New York Times, Ask.com, Marriott, Sprint, among others. Eye-tracking analysis of a web site is scalable, meaning that the costs associated with it can be reduced when the behaviour of specific markets or specific users is examined. It can be made very affordable to small business.
Eye-Tracking versus Web Site Usability?
Eye-tracking is a science of human behaviour-covert human behaviour. The goal is to try to see what is going on in people's heads and use this information to improve site performance.
In contrast, web site usability is about making it easy to use a web site. It is the theory of web site design. Eye-tracking actually tells us empirically about the effectiveness of your specific web site design. It tells us how we might modify a site to optimize site performance after all the theory of usability has been applied.
Dr. Philip Michael Zeman provides consulting in the area of behavioural analysis. He recently completed a PhD involving the analysis of eye tracking and brain activity data. You can read more of the veteran StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com/
Tel - 250-385-1190, Toll Free - 877-385-5526, Fax - 250-385-1198
Simply stated, someone who studies human behaviour and the brain (a Behavioural Neuropsychologist) can help you:
(1) select the best participants for an eye-tracking study,
(2) determine the number of participants required,
(3) design the eye-tracking task to get usable results,
(4) design task instructions, and
(5) understand how study results apply to the target population.
Why Having a Behavioural Neuropsychologist on Your Eye-Tracking Team is a Good Idea
I've had considerable experience with eye-tracking: constructing an eye-tracker from spare parts, creating calibration procedures, writing analysis software, and using the eye-tracker in multiple studies. Although my background is in engineering, more recently, I completed a PhD combining engineering, biology and psychology to create new tools to study brain activity and human behaviour. Since completing my PhD, I've seen my fellow engineers, computer scientists, and web gurus struggle to obtain clear, usable results from the latest and greatest eye-tracking equipment. In my opinion, the crux of their struggles lay in what they don't know about behavioural neuropsychology- the science examining the relationship between the human brain and human behaviour. While I can't quite call myself a Behavioural Neuropsychologist, I have trained with them and can describe some of the gotch-ya's of behavioural research. This article describes why including someone with experience in the field of Behavioural Neuropsychology on your eye-tracking team is a very good idea.
Tracking Your First Eye
Imagine if you will, that an associate of yours has just lent you an eye-tracker and you're keen on using it to optimize your web site. You want to know what people are looking at and you want to modify your web site based on this information. To investigate this, you sit a co-worker down in a chair in front of a computer and configure the equipment to track their eyes. Then you display your web site; the eye-tracker shows where they look when various pages appear. It also shows where you co-worker looks when they stare blankley ahead, confused and perplexed, asking you, "What should I do?". eye
Making Eye-Tracking Data Useful
While you might have been able to successfully track a few eyes while people viewed a few web pages, the process of obtaining useful eye-tracking results requires some thought and experience. Considerable thought and experience, actually. My recommendation is that you find someone who has a working knowledge of brain function and has done behavioural research to help you obtain useful data from your eye-tracker. This article is about why this is a good idea.
Let's assume that your goal is to optimize your web site; to get as many people who arrive on the site to make a purchase, or read about and digest an idea. Without getting into the details of what eye-movement and eye-gaze means, let's focus on the role of a behavioural neuropsychologist in the design of the actual 'experiment' that will help you optimize your web site.
The Role of the Behavioural Neuropsychologist
The behavioural neuropsychologist can help you get the most out of your eye-tracking study by helping you design the study correctly. They can do this because they have studied the science of behaviour and specialize in understanding the relationship between brain activity and human behaviour. They research WHY people do what they do, which is exactly what you want to find out! They can help you (1) select the best 'type' of participants, (2) determine the number of participants needed, (3) determine how to investigate the specific behaviours of interest, (4) design task instructions, (5) and understand how study results apply to the target population.
(1) Selecting the Best Type of Participants
When examining how people interact with their environment, the question always arises, "who are the best people to use for my study?" There are a number of human factors to consider including: expertise, gender, and the interest study participants might have in your product or service.people
� Expertise: training and experience. People often seem to have their own way of doing things and often it seems that you can predict what people will, or won't do, before they enter the room. My own experience with eye-tracking is that engineers generally do things way differently than 'normal' people. Similarly, my own neuropsychology colleagues, familiar with seeing the behaviour of students who study psychology, were at first amazed at the bizarreness of an engineering approach to completing standard behavioural psychology tasks. Engineers have been trained to apply algorithms to solve problems, and hence, their training and expertise affects how they behave in the real world. They apply strategies that are not typical of other populations. Hence, you might reconsider using an engineer in your study if you want to understand the average person. (Unless of course, you wish to understand engineers!)
� Gender: male versus female. Remember gender 'equality' movements of the past? Remember when we were told that males and females are the same? These days the data are telling us that the genders differ in many ways. Behaviourally speaking, it is not entirely clear whether or not these differences are simply the result of experience and training. A fun factoid that I recently acquired is that most behavioural rat research is conducted on male rats. I've been told that female rats are much more variable than males, and for this reason, it is harder to use them in research. My own experience with human study participants is that females are generally more variable than males (when it comes to spatial navigation). The take-home on this point is that there is a good chance that two similar studies, one with only males versus one of only females might have different outcomes. Always consider gender in your study.
� Interest in your product: interest versus indifference? If you're examining how people interact with your site, it is important to remember that people who are genuinely interested in your product will probably behave differently than people who are participating in your study simply for the ten or twenty dollars (a standard incentive to get participants in behavioural studies) you are giving them. Since the objective of a product site is generally twofold: (1) to sell to people who know and are loyal to the product, and to (2) convince people to buy your product who are new or are just 'surfing', you probably want both types of people in your study. You should probably examine the resulting eye-tracking data of each group separately so that you really get a feel for how features of your site relate specifically to each group.
(2) Determining the Number of Participants Needed
"How many people do I need in my study?" is another important question. This is a number that people always like to optimize because it directly relates to the cost of the study. You don't want too many people because that increases the cost of the study, but you want enough people so that you can be confident in the results.
� Variability of the group of people you selected. If you want to know about males, females, experts (engineers for example), non-experts (average human population), and those who are interested, and indifferent, you probably have quite a bit of variability on your hands. Variability in people generally leads to large variance in your results. Variance is something you want to strategically minimize to gain confidence in your results. Generally, it is best to be very specific about the question you are investigating and in your web site optimization goal. For example, you might shape your study to find out what engineers look at on your web site and then optimize your site for engineers. By doing so, you will probably require fewer participants to achieve your goal (particularly if those engineers you choose are male). By strategically selecting your participants, you can minimize the costs associated with your study.
� Confidence you need to have in the results. Determining how confident you need to be in your result can be a little confusing and it is often useful to simply follow conventional methods. Often 95% confidence is acceptable in behavioural research. This means that you can be confident that 19 in 20 people will act as the study results have predicted. This said, when dollars are the main concern, 99.9% confidence is better than 95% confidence because you don't want to risk making a poor design change to your site that results in lost income. However you must remember that getting 99.9% confidence might require many more study participants (increased study cost). A researcher who has experience doing behavioural research can help predict how many people will be required to attain required confidence levels.
(3) Deriving Usable Results from Eye-Tracking Datastatistics
Planning a study so that the resulting data can be easily analyzed, and usable results can be obtained is a fundamental skill of someone who has been trained in behavioural research. A Behavioural Neuropsychologist who has experience with eye-tracking can help solidify your goal of optimizing your website into some tangible research questions and apply the appropriate statistics to get the required answers.
� Formulating a statistically testable research question from the general requirement of web site optimization. Having some ideas about what comparisons can be made using an eye-tracker, and how to do the statistical analysis to answer specific research questions is a fundamental part of making all of this work. Let's consider a simple example where a web page has two links. Link A is on the left-hand side of the page and Link B is on the right-hand side of the page. You want to know if there is a real difference between how many people look at link A versus link B. From your web site logs (or Google Analytics data) you know that on average, more people click link B than link A.
However in this example, we are supplementing our click analysis using eye-tracking data to measure covert behaviour. Eye-tracking will tell us where people have looked and might tell us why people have not clicked. It is a safe assumption that people probably won't click on a link they have not looked at.
There are multiple possible research questions that may or may not include the factors of Gender, Expertise, and Product Interest described above. You might ask if there is a relationship between eye-gaze at A and B (how similar are they) and if there is a gender difference. For example, is there a relationship between the duration males look at A and the duration males look at B? Does this differ from females? Alternatively you might ask, is the latency from the time the web page appears on the screen to when males look at A and look at B different? Subtle differences in the specific question you are asking might require important differences in how the experiment is formulated and how the data collection is approached. The mechanism used to reveal information from the data in the cases described above is called hypothesis testing and it requires that the statistical test you do after data collection be known before the experiment begins.
� Finding information hidden in the data. One key advantage to having a neurospsychologist around is that they have used statistics to obtain hidden information from the data. For example, often unexpected results can be found by applying multiple types of statistical tests in a variety of ways on the data. This doesn't fit within standard hypothesis testing rules and regulations but it does help you understand your data and find effects that might be new to you. We can look for relationships between things like Gender, Expertise, and Product Interest with the eye-tracking data collected. For example, you might find that females look at B BEFORE they look at A and that this behaviour does not seem to be present in males. Now this is something potentially very useful for web site optimization and you can probably use this to improve your site performance. It would be unfortunate if money were spent on an eye-tracking study and important information, hidden in the data, was not uncovered because the appropriate statistical tests were not run to reveal it.
(4) Designing Task Instructions
A question that I have rarely been asked when talking with people about eye-tracking analysis of web sites is, "What instructions should be used to guide the actions of study participants?" The fact this question is asked so rarely suggests that it isn't on people's minds. Task instructions are very important. They are so important that there is a whole body of research specializing in how instructions affect what people do.
If you really want to study bona fide human behaviour, no instructions are best. However, a study with no instructions isn't realistic: you have to tell them something! Given that we want as little variability in the behaviour of study participants as possible, the ideal thing to do is to use the same instructions for all participants in the study. While this seems like a solid idea in theory, different peoples use and response to identical instructions is different ways. And this contributes to more variable data. For example, sometimes people don't understand the instructions given, they have their own interpretation of the instructions, or they forget what was said right after the instructions are given. This is variability that you probably don't want to appear in the final result of the study.
� Get an experienced professional to design your task instructions. A Behavioural Neurospsychologist who has had experience with these situations, has been trained to deal with the problems associated with task instructions. They have experience designing task instructions.
� Get an experienced professional to actually run study participants. These people are not necessarily Behavioural Neurophysiologists, but they have been trained to run study participants and know the value of doing things 'properly'. They have had experience 'guiding' people along when they have forgotten why they are there. They have 'already' made their mistakes and will hopefully spare you the headache of learning on your dime.
(5) Understanding How Study Results Apply to the Target Population
Finally, the last key element that I will talk about that a Behavioural Neuropsychologist can help you with is in understanding how the results of your study apply to the general human population. Said another way, it is very important that you know how your study applies to the population of existing and potential customers. A Behavioural Neuropsychologist will use all of his or her power and knowledge to design the study to represent your target population. When this is done correctly, the confidence numbers of 95% or 99.9% that describe the sample of the population used in the study can be applied to the target population of potential customers out there on the internet.
Summary and Conclusions
It is not sufficient to simply track eyes; what you need is a small study of what peoples' eyes do when they look at your web site. Partnering with someone who specializes in behavioural psychology (studies the relationship between brain function and human behaviour) can maximize your investment in eye-tracking. They will help you:
(1) select the best participants for the study,
(2) determine the number of participants required,
(3) design the task to get usable results,
(4) design task instructions, and
(5) understand how study results apply to the target population.
StepForth Web Marketing Inc. and I (Dr. Philip Michael Zeman) are currently investigating a partnership to offer eye-tracking analysis of web sites. In order to launch this new service and build our dossier we are willing to provide significant discounts for parties interested in having eye-tracking conducted on their site. We are accepting inquiries by email and phone - here is our contact information.
For more information about web marketing and web site optimization services see http://www.stepforth.com. For more discussion about Eye-Tracking and related brain activity analysis see http://www.brainandvision.com
-More Background-
What is Eye-Tracking?
Tracking eye-movement allows one to identify where people look on a web page. It shows: where people spend their time looking, the sequence in which people look at things on a page, what they do not look at, and reveals how visitors separate (or 'chunk') information on the screen.
Click here for YouTube on Brain Scan Technology Called MOST-EEG (Multiple Origin Spatio-Temporal Modeling)
Why is Eye-Tracking a Good Idea?
Many organizations are using eye-tracking to optimize their web site performance: to make information easier to find, and to increase web site conversions. These include: Microsoft, Xerox, The New York Times, Ask.com, Marriott, Sprint, among others. Eye-tracking analysis of a web site is scalable, meaning that the costs associated with it can be reduced when the behaviour of specific markets or specific users is examined. It can be made very affordable to small business.
Eye-Tracking versus Web Site Usability?
Eye-tracking is a science of human behaviour-covert human behaviour. The goal is to try to see what is going on in people's heads and use this information to improve site performance.
In contrast, web site usability is about making it easy to use a web site. It is the theory of web site design. Eye-tracking actually tells us empirically about the effectiveness of your specific web site design. It tells us how we might modify a site to optimize site performance after all the theory of usability has been applied.
Dr. Philip Michael Zeman provides consulting in the area of behavioural analysis. He recently completed a PhD involving the analysis of eye tracking and brain activity data. You can read more of the veteran StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com/
Tel - 250-385-1190, Toll Free - 877-385-5526, Fax - 250-385-1198
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