Monday, April 9, 2007

Ultra CEMS – Emerging as a Market Leader

Weymouth based Contract Electronics Manufacturer; Ultra Electronics Manufacturing Services (Ultra CEMS) is part of the very successful £300M+ T/o Ultra Electronics plc group of companies.

Ultra CEMS offer high reliability, low to medium volume, turnkey electronic manufacturing services to a wide range of industries including companies from the Aerospace, Defence, Industrial, Instrumentation, Marine, Medical, Measurement & Control, Oil & Gas, Telecoms and Transportation market sectors.

John Dean, Ultra CEMS Customer Support Manager takes up the story: “We have a growing reputation in the low to medium volume, high reliability market sector. High levels of capital investment have enabled us to greatly expand our SMT and conventional throughput and a focus on in-house training has helped to build our reputation for quality. Although we do some manufacturing for other Ultra divisions, it totals only 15 % of our turnover, and we build products for around 20 other major UK OEMs.

As a division of Ultra Electronics plc, Ultra CEMS has significant purchasing power with particular strengths in obsolescence management, global sourcing and Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI).

Furthermore, Ultra CEMS has a dedicated IPC training school on site to ensure all production staff are trained to a very high standard. As a result, Ultra CEMS offer all their clients IPC-A-610 Class 3 workmanship as standard.

Products can be manufactured under full material traceability conditions. Component failures in the field can be traced back to specific batches of materials and even which assembly operators assembled the product.

Ultra’s business growth has been dramatic, with many new and larger OEM customers now using their one-stop-shop services.

A third SMT line (capable of 0201 placement) complete with seven zone reflow oven for lead free pcb assembly, a top of the range flying probe test capability and a robotic conformal coating station have all been added to the portfolio of capabilities already on offer at Weymouth. Additionally, a further 3,500 sq.ft of floor space has been opened with plans to add more in 2006.

Dean adds “We are one of the first EMS providers in the UK to develop a fully debugged, lead-free PCB assembly line. One of our customers required a very high melting point solder to be used (in excess of 225°C) on the assembly process of their products as a result of the extreme operating temperatures the finished product experienced ‘in situ’. As a result, we developed our lead free capability and have been running our lead free line since July 2004 and now have over 30 products running down it”. This has put us in an excellent position to deliver RoHS compliant solutions for our customers.
“Our main strengths are not our processes and capital investment though, but our people, and the high level of personalised service they provide for each customer. We can help our customers by providing low-cost manufacture and test design advice at their design reviews, and we nurse their boards through the often troublesome prototyping phase.”

Ultra CEMS is now recognised as one of the UK’s premier low to medium volume full turn-key contract electronics manufacturers. The company has aspirations to be the UK market leader for high reliability business.

About the Author

John Dean Customer Support Manager Web-Site: www.ultra-cems.comE-mail: cems@ultra.co.uk

Turn Your Old Articles Into Profitable E-mail Courses

If you've written numerous articles, you can use them to further promote yourself and your business, e-zine or web site.

You can re-use your old articles by transforming them into another form of promotional tool.

And one way to re-use them is by turning them into e-mail courses. By doing so, you'll be able to offer a new product that will help you establish your credibility as a business owner, e-zine publisher or web site owner.

Even though you'll make use of old articles, you won't be offering a re-hash.

Why? Because once you transform your old articles and gather them together to form an e-mail course, you add a more focused learning dimension to them. For this, you're able to create a new and effective marketing tool.

So how do you do it? In a nutshell:

1. Gather all your articles and find a common theme among them. If you've written a number of articles aimed for beginning online business owners, these articles can make up one e-mail course. Your e-mail course can be a short one (2-4 articles) or a long one (5 or more).

2. When you've identified a common theme, arrange your articles in a way that provides some sort of logic or flow to them.

3. Assign one article as one e-mail module or follow up. If you're using 4 articles, your e-mail course would consist of 4 modules or follow ups.

4. Take a good look at each article. Does it look like you can weave the activities within 'lessons' or will it require you to separate the 'lessons' from the 'assignments' -- information first (your re-written article) and then hands-on activities or tests after?

5. Do your articles use the 'you' voice? If not, re-write as if you're telling your friend a story. Do your articles sound formal? Even though you're 'teaching' something, strive to keep it lighthearted. Be engaging and friendly, but never be too flippant or condescending.

6. Include additional resources at the end of each module or follow up. These resources could be online references and researches, and even more intensive lessons.

7. Proofread.

8. Insert your promotional texts in the beginning, middle or end of each module or follow up. However, don't overdo this. People who will request your e-mail course are going to see through you once they find out that your promotional texts far outweigh the lessons and valuable instructions in your e-mail course. Put value over the content of your e-mail course first and your workshop takers will trust you and believe in your expertise.

9. Put your e-mail course on autoresponder and set the time each module or follow up will be sent. You can use free or fee-based autoresponders.

Before you announce your e-mail course, test and re-test it thoroughly. When you're certain everything is fine, go ahead and announce it.

About the Author

Copyright (c) Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ Shery is the developer of creative, motivating and fun e-mail courses for writers. Sign up and take an e-mail course today -- free! -- at http://WritingBliss.com. She also authored the e-book that lets you create your own original and profitable E-mail Workshops, eCourses and Tutorials in only 3 days! Visit http://EmailWorkshopsHowTo.comfor more info.

Benefits of Article Distribution

Are you familiar with the benefits of distributing articles? If not, you will want to become educated as soon as possible so that you can start making this service work in your favor.

The biggest question that most people have is how they are going to distribute articles. Fortunately, this answer is quite simple. There are hundreds of articles directories that you can submit articles to; each one offerings its own level of benefits.

Everyone’s experience with article distribution is different. Some people are very successful, and others only get a bit of added exposure this way. But if you decide that you want to put the time into this, you should be able to garner results in no time at all.

Listed below are a few benefits that go along with distributing articles.

1. When you submit an article to a directory, it is going to get placed on the site for the entire internet world to read. In addition, you will be able to add your author bio box to the bottom of the article. This way after somebody is done reading your article they can then visit your site to learn more about your and your services. This is a great way to get targeted traffic to your site.

2. Distributing articles will make you look like an expert in your area; even if you are not as experienced as you want to be. When somebody reads a well written article by you, they will then assume that you know what you are talking about. And the more well respected you are, the better chance you have of garnering additional business.

3. Articles that are submitted to directories can be picked up by other sites as well. This is not always the case, but the majority of the times this is true. So in turn, you could write one good article, and it could then be published on several other sites. Subsequently your author bio and link is also published which means that you are getting even more exposure than you initially thought.

4. Most directories have a way for the reader to choose an author and then see every article that he or she has written. This means that if you submit enough articles, you will begin to get a nice following of people that check back to see your work. Over time these people can grow into clients; this means more money in your pocket.

5. Distributing articles is one of the best ways to market yourself or your business without having to spend any money. The only thing that you have to do is take the time to write the articles. And if you do not want to do this, you can hire somebody to do so for a small fee.

About the Author

To distribute your own articles an receive all the benefits mentioned in this article, go to http://www.articletrader.com/distribution/

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About the Author

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Using Wholesale Electronics to Get Organized

If you’re not at the top of whatever workflow chart you find yourself a part of, chances are good that you find yourself wishing your office was a little bigger. Even though technology makes our lives easier, it certainly takes up a lot of space. And with more and more gizmos and gadgets coming out each year, the wires, manuals, and add-ons can really take their toll on your already cramped space.

Office space clutter is not only annoying, but it can also be one of the fastest ways to lose a client’s or coworker’s respect. Here are a few tips and wholesale electronics devices you can use to cut down on the clutter and create a neat, clean, professional-looking office.

In the world of monitors, big is NOT beautiful. The first thing you should do if your desktop acreage leaves you wanting is to toss the huge monitor that came with your computer and go out and buy yourself a flat panel monitor. They’re not cheap, but I promise it’s the best birthday present you’ll give yourself until you’re on the top of the workflow chart (i.e. BMW…).

Go wireless. Keyboard and mouse wires are unnecessary evils now that wireless options are cheap and readily available. An optical mouse eliminates the need for a mouse pad if you are really in a crunch for space. Depending on the size of company you are working for, wireless internet routers and wireless cards for both PCs and laptops are options to help cut down on the miles of wires that seem to run to the back of your computer. Wholesale electronics vendors typically carry package deals on wireless keyboards and mouses that make this option even more economical.

Keep the wires under wraps. Some devices don’t come without wires (yet), and chances are you’ve got dozens of wires running under your feet as you read this article. Use Velcro strips, ties, or tubing to bundle wires together. When you upgrade your wires and connections, check the wholesale electronics section to see if they carry wire organizing devices. Not only does this keep you from pulling the printer cable out of the back of your computer each time you stretch your feet, but it will also make under your desk look neat.

Get personal with your audio. Have you ever noticed that the stylish, modern shapes that computer speakers come in don’t typically stack well? If you are working in a public workspace and have to hunch near your speakers to listen to your music, consider switching to headphones. Wireless headphones are available from a number of vendors and the prices are quite reasonable. Combination microphone and headphone headsets also reduce the need to use awkward desktop microphones.

Take your office with you. Over the last few years laptops have really come into their own. You can get all the computing power you’d ever want out of a desktop without having to worry about an extra monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers – and even better yet, you don’t have to worry about all the wires that come with them. Any upgrades or add-ons you need can usually be picked up pretty inexpensive from any wholesale electronics dealer.

Three auxiliaries are better than one. Printers, copiers, and scanners are integral parts to any home business or office. But you don’t need to sacrifice tons of deskspace to have them all. You can often save quite a bit of money buying 3-in-1 combinations of these auxiliaries rather than buying them separately. You also integrate all of your tech support needs for the devices because they are all made by the same company.

The devil is in the details. Little things can really go a long way in cleaning up the clutter and opening up desk and office space. USB flash drives store more than their bulky disk counterparts and you can rest assured that they’ll be compatible wherever you go. Under-desk trays for keyboards and mice, clip on copy holders that attach to your monitor, and stacking paper trays will all help your home or work office look and feel neat and organized.

About the Author

Nick Smith is a client account specialist with http://www.10xMarketing.com– More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. For wholesale electronics that can help you get organized, visit http://www.bargaintable.com/wholesale-electronics.html

Saturday, April 7, 2007

How To Make Your Computer Print Money In 6 Easy Steps

I bet that got your attention, didn't it? I've been working on my headlines. Sorry to disappoint you but this article isn't about counterfeiting or how to get rich quick. It's about how to create a successful website which will draw lots of traffic and make you lots of money.

This is an enormous subject and you could write a book on each different step. I'm just going to provide a general outline here of the 6 crucial steps to creating a website that's successful over the long term.

1 - Pick Your Niche

Choose something you enjoy researching and writing about because you're going to spend a lot of time doing both. It shouldn't have a lot of competition. For example, don't choose "electronics." I guarantee you'll never get a better ranking in the search engines than Sony or Amazon.com. Narrow it down to something like "high end audiophile speakers".

Do some research. Check out how much your keywords are going to cost for advertising. If they're really expensive you might want to choose another niche. Check out some sites with similar subject matter so you can see who you're going to be competing with for rankings in the search engines.

2 - Choose Your Service Providers And Register Your Domain

Your service providers must be reliable. If your internet connection is always going down or your server is constantly crashing it's going to be difficult to maintain a successful business. Don't skimp on quality just to save a few pennies here.

Your domain name should contain your most important keyword that you're hoping to rank well for in the search engines. It should be something unique that's related to your niche and easily brandable. By brandable I mean easy for people to remember and associate with your site. Some call it "mindshare".

3 - Create Your Content

Your content must be unique. If you're content is plagiarized, Google will tend to ignore you. They now recognize duplicate content and refuse to list it. They want to provide their users with useful results. People have been slapping together crappy "made for adsense" websites by just copying and pasting content and Google's decided to put an end to it.

My advice is not to mess with Google. They're the 900 lb gorilla of the internet that you really don't want to piss off. If you can't get listed in the search engines, you're pretty much doomed from the start. So give them what they want. You'll need 30-100 pages of good content before you even put up a website. You could just start with a few pages and add a page day - like you would with a blog - but it will take you longer to get indexed. Are you noticing a theme about the search engines here?

4 - Create Your Website

You're either going to have to use a program like Dreamweaver or a Content Management System. I'd suggest considering a CMS. You'll need to update your website frequently, and even for experienced web designers this can be difficult. A CMS removes all the hassles of publishing new content daily. However, you have to make sure your CMS is search engine friendly. Probably the easiest thing to do for a beginner is use a blogging program like Wordpress. Search engines LOVE blogs, they're very easy to update, and best of all Wordpress is FREE.

You should create the website with search engine optimization in mind right from the start. SEO is a very in-depth subject that I can't get into here. Basically, you'll want to make sure your website can be easily crawled by the search engine robots or "spiders". This requires all kinds of things like proper meta-tags and making sure you have good keyword density on your pages.

Also, you MUST make sure all your pages load quickly. Much of the world still doesn't have broadband. The average surfer will only wait about 4 seconds before they click off elsewhere. If your pages load too slowly you will be losing massive amounts of traffic. Navigation is very important as well. If people have a hard time finding their way around they'll quickly get frustrated and leave.

5 - Drive Traffic To Your Website

Setting up a business on the net is different than at a physical location. In the "real" world it's all about location, location, location. If your store's in a high traffic area it's easy to get customers. But on the net no one just passes by, they SEARCH for specific things. Until your site is listed in the search engines there's no way for anyone to find it - It's up to you to drive traffic to it.

There a several ways to do this:

You can buy it by creating ads and then bidding on certain keywords so the ads will show up whenever anyone searches for them.

You can get it for free by:

- Writing articles on your niche topic with a link to your site in the author's resource box, and submitting them to article directories so publishers can use them and distribute them to thousands of readers.

- Submitting your site to free SEO friendly web directories.

- Social bookmarking some of the more interesting pages on your site at places like del.icio.us and Blink.

- Submitting some of your articles to sites like Digg or Reddit, where people vote on whether they should be displayed on the front page. If you're item is popular and gets displayed on the front page of Digg, the amount of traffic you get could crash your server. I'm not kidding, I've seen it happen.

- Participate in forums and provide a link to your site in you signature. Don't spam or you'll get banned - make intelligent comments.

- Comment in blogs with a link in your sig. Again - don't spam. And make sure the blog isn't using no-follow or you'll be wasting your time.

- Post free classified ads. These provide a high value link back from a popular site, plus you get free targeted traffic to your website from the ads.

- There's many ways to get free traffic - just be creative - but don't be too creative. There's a lot of illegal ways to get free traffic as well but they'll backfire on you in the long run.

6 - Monetize Your Website

This is the fun part. Now that you've got all this traffic how do you make money?

- You can sell advertising - probably the easiest way is with Google Adsense. You can also sell banner space, text links, almost anything really.

- You can sell merchandise - I'd suggest drop-shipping. Why do all that packing and shipping if you don't have to? That's too much like work.

- You can do affiliate marketing - one of the easiest ways to do this is to feature recommended products that link through to your affiliate's site for purchase. Just make sure you choose quality products to be affiliated with.

- The sky's the limit when it comes to monetizing your website. Be creative here too - but again, not too creative. You don't want to do anything stupid and get banned from Adsense or your best affiliate program.

And there you have it. How to make your computer print money in six not so easy steps. Now get going and have some fun!


About the Author

Matthew Carney is an internet entrepreneur and disgruntled former chef. If you found this article informative and would like to learn more about making money online you can visit his website: http://carmat.thebizreview.net You can also check out his blog: http://myonlinebusinessreview.blogspot.com


Bringing Back The Friendly Country General Store......online!

Having worked in major media markets for a few decades, I remember when the better pr person one could be, or spin-doctor if you will, the "cooler" you were, and the more people wanted to do business with you. All that has changed, dramatically, and probably for the better.

I love reading autobiographies because, more often than not, one really gets to "meet the author" through the book, and it is easy (for me) within the first few pages to see if the article is being written from the writer's heart, or if it is a bunch of hype.

I try to read them all because they can have a "grounding experience". If the author is able to express him/or herself well, he/she can reveal things that are never told in the press.

On the few occasions I read a good one, I can get so fired up, I want to try what that person has tried. Of course at age fifty two, I am keenly aware of my on faults and liabilities and limitations, and I can't "do it all" as I felt in my youth, so I do what I think I can do where my strengths are.

Two of the best autobiographies I read were Sam Walton's and Charles Schulz's, for different reasons.

I loved Schulz because I always heard he was always a nice guy, never let his success get to his head, and hung out with kids at the local skating rink until the time of his death. He put himself "out there" in spite of battling TRD (treatment resistant depression) and made a difference. He created a character, Charlie Brown, the proverbial loser, whom he knew, no matter how successful we all become, we can always identify a bit with Charlie Brown and his discovery and frustrations of his own failures.

Schulz reveals in his book some of his ironies. Remember the little girl with the red hair that Charlie always thought he could have loved? In real life, Schulz was dating a redheaded woman who dumped him for a fireman because he would not give up his dream of becoming a cartoonist and was getting nowhere. A few months after she married the fireman, Peanuts became syndicated. What man in the world cannot identify with that scene? And one cannot help but admire the savvy of Schulz and his ability to turn paper and pencil into an empire. He didn't do it with hype. He did it because we could identify with "the lost child" in Charlie Brown, where everyone else, even the dog, had the answers when he didn't.

Why Sam Walton? Who can't be amazed by this small-town country gentleman who understood the importance of quality and service, and demanded it no matter how big they grew he demanded that he and his employees keep that same personal service. Though, of course, given today's marketplace that has not happened, he has managed to do so online, and to a certain degree in his stores, without a lot of hype.

One of Wal-Mart's top executives last month revealed that sales in the stores had been down .05% but up online 43%. This is important information in that it means either they are doing something right on the Internet, or more people are shopping on the Internet. Certainly their website only offers a portion of products that is available in their store. And often the prices are a bit higher. So something has happened.

What is it? I strongly believe the dot.com boom is just starting, not based on the Wal-Mart story, but considering all the tools now available to online e-tailers and marketers of services, ebooks, etc.

Ezine articles alone can help one develop a huge following. Does Wal-Mart use ezine marketing? I don't know for sure, but they don't need to. I just did so for them, and so do many others when quoting something about Wal-Mart. It is in our everyday vocabulary. It's a brand, a household word ingrained in our psyche, that a hundred years ago did not exist.

Forty years ago, Woolworth's and Sears was the same. But something again happened. What was it?

The Walton family made a very shrewd move. They decided that they would buy more volume at lesser prices and pass the savings along to the consumer and rely on turnover of products. At times, they would take losses on products, but make up for it on others. They created a strict policy from whom they would purchase, and researched each provider to be certain they were capable of delivery.

Now, any one of us can do the same thing on the Internet. With a little research, one can find wholesalers that are real wholesalers/dropshippers and can match and often even beat prices that the big dogs sell for. Indeed they have a recommended retail price which is generally a bit high. I try with my stores to take the prices down (and even offer a further discount with coupon codes) across the entire store.

If you have not tried coupons or coupon code sites, some of them can be very profitable. I simply have one word across the board on all products at my store. At checkout, the customer types in "storewide" on any purchase and receives another 5% off the discounted price. This does not seem like a great deal, but when buying consumer electronics, computers, digicams and other items I sell, it can add up, and the fact that the prices are already discounted from the recommended price offers added value. Internet shoppers love "extra value" and one can keep a majority coming back month after month, year after year. I occasionally look at the newsletter sign up (always have that opt-in offer on your site), and see that a lot of our shoppers are return customers.

Another sales strategy (especially on the Internet is offering "freebies"). There are a number of ways to do this.

Though a good many of my products such as pet chewies might sell for as low as $3.00, a lot of products are more expensive like laptops or home entertainment system. It is easy to spend $500 or more on a good system.

So I decided to cross-promote from another e-store I have and offer free gourmet coffee gift baskets (our private label, a $50 value) with any $500 purchase.

You can even take this a step further and offer free engraving. For instance, the coffee gift basket also has cartoon coasters and a cartoon mug from our cartoon inventory site. We offer free engraving of the customers name and web address making it a unique corporate gift, and a good many orders come from that very promotion.

All this is not a lot of hype. It is common sense. Customers on the Internet are looking for good and interesting deals (as well as quality products and service). I decided early on, for instance to carry only name brands. I am not sure name brands are always better than non-name brands, but I do know that I often type in a name brand when I am looking for something. For instance when I was doing a Google keyword search for an IBM Thinkpad "R" Series, I found one (at my store) and it was the best deal AND I got the free gift basket and extra 5% off.

I felt like the guy who owns "Hair Club For Men"....I loved it so much I bought the business. I will be honest, there are some products we just don't carry and I want them (for my own private use). I am not ashamed to say that; not every store can please everyone, including mine. So when I shop, I put on my "customer cap" (no longer the e-Willie Lohman) salesperson, and begin looking for good deals, or interesting deals and promotions that are not all hype, just like the folks who shop with me.

Don't be afraid to look around and see what others are doing if you own a store or some stores.

Don't plagiarize their site or concept, but if something is working, think of your own promotion that may work even better.

You will be surprised at the amount of orders that happen. Next week I will be talking about double opt-in email campaigns and if they are more (or less) targeted than pay-per-click and if they are more or less effective.

Stay tuned! And thanks for your time.

About the Author

Rick London is a writer, cartoonist, inventor, e-tailer, and full time adult back to school student. He owns numerous websites; a few of them include Internet2YourDoor http://www.internet2yourdoor.com , the mega-store and the top Internet Cartoon http://www.londonstimes.us Londons Times Cartoons