1. Federal-Government Manager

Especially in homeland security, energy and the environment, health care, veterans affairs and defense. Common job titles: program analyst, program manager and director.

2. Higher-Education Administrator

Even in tough times, and despite annual beyond-inflation price increases, many people continue to pursue higher education. Neat niche: student-affairs administrator.  (No, I’m not talking about assignations.)

3. Program Evaluator

Is Head Start really worth the taxpayer dollars? Is it wise to train lab technicians online? What should the next-generation teen-pregnancy-prevention program look like? Program evaluators address such questions.

4. Global Business Development

Corporate executive specializing in global business development or managing global workforces are in demand. Speaking Mandarin, Hindi, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic or Farsi is a plus.

5. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist

The Mental Health Parity Act requires that mental health now be covered as fully as physical health, but many insurers will cover only cognitive-behavioral therapy because it’s both shorter and, on average, more efficacious than traditional psychotherapy.  Learn more: Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies

6. Immigration Expert

President Obama has promised amnesty or “a path to citizenship” for the U.S.’s illegal immigrants. Experts will be needed to figure out how to integrate millions of people who are typically poor, speak little English and have high health-care needs.

7. Researcher

Researcher with expertise in two or more of these subjects: physics, math, molecular biology, engineering and computer science. Key specializations and examples of work in each area: energy, genomics, neurophysics, diagnostic imaging and pollution control. Warning: After getting that PhD in hard science and math, you may need a one- to two-year postdoctoral position. Learn more: Career Guide for Scientists, The Science Careers portal from Science magazine

8. Health-Informatics Specialist

Health-care providers are switching to electronic medical records, using computerized expert systems to guide diagnoses and treatment recommendations, and collecting more data to evaluate quality of care. Learn more: American Medical Informatics Organization,American Health Information Management Association

9. Optometrist

This career offers a high patient success rate, good income, status and shorter-than-MD training: four years post-bachelors or seven years in a BS/OD program.  Learn more: Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11: Optometrists

10. Genetic Counselor

With personal DNA sequencing ever more informative and affordable, people face many more gene-related decisions. For example, if your genome doubles your risk of breast cancer, should you have a prophylactic mastectomy? Or if you’re pregnant and a test reveals your baby has the gene for a disease that has a 50-50 chance of being serious, should you abort? Genetic counselors help people decide what to do. A master’s is the terminal degree. Learn more: National Society of Genetic Counselors

 11. Patient advocate

Help ensure the patient gets to see the right specialist, do research so the patient is better informed when talking to the doctor, educate family members on how to support the patient during a hospital stay, sort through the mountains of bills and, if necessary, negotiate fees.  Learn more: About.com’s guide to Becoming a Patient Advocate

 12. Physical Therapist

This career scores high on job-satisfaction surveys, thanks to one-on-one interaction that lasts longer than physicians’ average of 12 minutes per patient, tangible patient progress and reasonable work hours. Plus, as aging boomers sustain more weekend-warrior injuries and worse, the job market could strengthen, although cost-control pressures are resulting in increased use of physical-therapy assistants, who have less training. A three-year Doctor of Physical Therapy is becoming the standard degree. Learn more: Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11: Physical Therapists,American Physical Therapy Association

13. Veterinarian

This career offers advantages over an MD career: shorter training, qualification to do a wider range of procedures, less paperwork and freedom from the uncertainties of health-care reform. Of course, your patients can’t describe what’s wrong with them.  Learn more: About.com’s veterinary career portal

Amazon.com
No surprise. A third of the people who buy online shop at Amazon.com. That percentage would be respectable if you were talking about the customers for an anchor department store at som e local mall in Paramus, N.J., but Amazon is the anchor store for all online shopping.

Dell
The pioneer of direct computer sales online is selling $30 million worth of gear a day from its website, so it’s obviously doing something right. Dell’s ability to customize orders set the standard for online computer retailing, and its AskJeeves.com-like “Ask Dudley” feature amply handles the inevitable technical questions that first-time customers are bound to have.

IQVC
You might expect the king of TV-based shopping to make a seamless leap to the Internet, having distribution and customer service already in place. Unlike other superstores, the iQVC ho me page gives you tons of info without overwhelming you. Of course, maybe QVC shoppers just love being able to buy what they want, when they want it.

BEST AUCTIONS:

EBay
It isn’t just the never-ending cavalcade of inventory — 250,000 new items are put up for auction every day here — that keeps its 5.6 million registered users hooked. eBay figure d out that trust means everything to e-commerce. To that end, it was among the first sites to encourage its buyers to publicly rate sellers. This year eBay even insured transactions so that customers would no longer have to worry about fraud.

OnSale
Part outlet store and part liquidator’s auction, the best feature of the auction half is that it never refers to people who purchase products as “buyers” but rather as & quot;winners.” OnSale successfully gives shopping the air of sport — which helps explain its hugely male demographic.

BEST SHOPPING TOOLS:

My Simon
The “Simon” character on this shopping bot looks like the kind of doll that would become animated and go homicidal in a horror movie. Aside from that unsettling detail, this site is helpful; it shows you products and prices from more than 1,500 online merchants. Simon may look psycho, but he is at least smart enough to give people who are looking for camcorders and frying pans different ways to frame their product search.

Dash.com
If you were a corporation, Dash would be your vice president in charge of discounts. When you sign up for Dash, you get rebates from its participating merchants. You also get a downloa dable tool bar that follows you wherever you shop, telling you when you could be buying the same item for less at a Dash-affiliated store.

BEST GUIDES:

Productopia
Say you’re in the market for a digital camera. Or cookware. Productopia will give you three sets of recommendations based on quality, style and value. Then, once you’ve decid ed whether you want to be cheap, chic or sensible, Productopia refers you to online and offline vendors.

Esmarts
Have you ever gone for a drink after work and, when the bartender asks what kind of Scotch you want, you say, “Just give me the cheap stuff”? If you have, this site’s fo r you. eSmarts shows you the places where you can get your shopping done without having to spend too much money.

BEST MOST CUSTOMER-FRIENDLY:

Fogdog
This sports-gear and -equipment site gets a good grade for making its big inventory easily accessible. If you’re looking for football kneepads, for example, you need only two clic ks to go from Fogdog’s home page to a screen that shows pictures and prices for their entire kneepad selection.

Clinique
One expert told me that Avon was the giant of the beauty category, “but check out Clinique. They have very loyal customers,” she said. I can see why. This site bonds with you instantly. It hits you right off the bat with a survey about your skin type, and once you answer, it tells you what products you need. After you’ve shared that kind of intimate information, how could you shop anywhere else?

Petopia
Is there anything worse than people prattling on about their pets? This site, in addition to carrying a full line of pet products, has extensive community features that give pet owners a place to get it all out of their system: A sample discussion topic is “tell us some of the silly names you have for your pet.” Let’s keep that kind of talk online where it belongs.

Wine.com
The greatest virtue of Wine.com, formerly Virtual Vineyards, is its user-friendly, easy-to-understand search tool, which makes anyone feel like a wine know-it-all. And it treats you th e same whether you’re going to buy the $325 Pinot Noir or just click on the “bang for the buck” specials.

Cyberian Outpost
This computer-hardware and -software has a sales push embedded in its checkout process that obviously helps itself but can help you as well — it unobtrusively alerts you to other prod ucts that would complement your purchase. If you’re buying a G3 Powerbook, for example, Outpost shows you a raft of software and accessories that go with the computer. If its pitch were in-your-face, you would hate it. The cool part is you don’t ; it comes across as helpful.

BEST IDEA FOR A SITE:

CarsDirect.com
Its car-buying process allows you to bypass the dealer entirely. The interface is easy to use. You pick out the car you want, and as you add options like a CD player or side air bags, you see the price go up instantly. As soon as you begin the process, you also get a delivery date.

RocketCash.com
It almost sounds crazy, but it works. Here’s a way for parents to let their credit-cardless children shop online. You can set up an account for your kids and give them lump sums o r even allowances. Then the children can make purchases at affiliated merchants without giving out personal information. Parents can also restrict sites they don’t want their children visiting.

TheKnot.com
Gift registries online make sense, and this site shows why. Here, you can have friends buy you china, linen, an outboard motor or even pay down a part of some newlyweds’ mortgage. A similar site that just launched and is worth visiting is Wishclick.com. Instead of offering up its own product selection like TheKnot, it lets you carve a gift list from the vastness of e-commerce sites everywhere.

MOST CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:

Disney
The Disney name gives this site the closest thing it could have to a captive audience, but it still treats visitors like honored guests. Most surveys give Disney high marks for retaini ng its corporate character while making it easy to get at all the stuff your kids want.

DVD Express
Most stores carry the same stock of DVDs. But this site appears to have the greatest inventory not just of movies but also of fun paraphernalia such as movie posters and gear with movi e-studio logos. Plus, it’s known for pleasing shoppers.

Preview Travel
While Expedia and Travelocity are actually the most popular online travel agents, I prefer previewtravel.com’s ease of use. It really makes it simple to plan a trip. Not only can you book tickets and make hotel and car reservations, but you can c all live customer service around the clock and view guides that feature maps and videos of more than 200 destinations. Travelocity must like the site-it plans to complete a merger with Preview early next year.

REI
See all the thumbnail images of sleeping bags? Don’t they make it easier to decide which one to further investigate? Great design and easy click-through make this site the place to fin d camping gear. Bargain hunters can check out its REI-Outlet.com site.

BEST GIMMICKS:

Lands’ End
Already getting high marks from shoppers for its usability, the clothing-seller site upped its game in September when it began offering two new features: Lands’ End Live, which lets you enter your phone number and receive a creepy-quick phone call from a customer-service rep; and Shop with a Friend, which allows two people in remote locations to get online, page through the site together, use text-based chat and drop purchases into the same basket.

Garden.com
Site designers employ soft green hues and flower-bud images so artfully on this home page, they make your computer seem like the perfectly logical place to start working on a garden. E verything about this site makes you want to buy plants. Coming this Christmas: an interactive station where you can design and buy your own wreath.

Drugstore.com
This site understands that people buying shampoo and deodorant are simply crossing things off their to-do list and want to move quickly. It has armed the site with a feature called &qu ot;1-click” — pioneered by its online cousin Amazon — which lets you buy one thing after another, a click at a time.

WorldSpy
A place to comparison shop and research products, this site has plans in the works to offer free Internet service without forcing a user to watch a bunch of ads. How? Free surfers will have to start every trek from WorldSpy’s home page.

BEST GUIDES:

Productopia
Say you’re in the market for a digital camera. Or cookware. Productopia will give you three sets of recommendations based on quality, style and value. Then, once you’ve decided whether you want to be cheap, chic or sensible, Productopia refers you to online and offline vendors.

Esmarts
Have you ever gone for a drink after work and, when the bartender asks what kind of Scotch you want, you say, “Just give me the cheap stuff”? If you have, this site’s for you. eSmarts shows you the places where you can get your shopping done without having to spend too much money.

BEST MOST CUSTOMER-FRIENDLY:

Fogdog
This sports-gear and -equipment site gets a good grade for making its big inventory easily accessible. If you’re looking for football kneepads, for example, you need only two clicks to go from Fogdog’s home page to a screen that shows pictures and prices for their entire kneepad selection.

Clinique
One expert told me that Avon was the giant of the beauty category, “but check out Clinique. They have very loyal customers,” she said. I can see why. This site bonds with you instantly. It hits you right off the bat with a survey about your skin type, and once you answer, it tells you what products you need. After you’ve shared that kind of intimate information, how could you shop anywhere else?

Petopia
Is there anything worse than people prattling on about their pets? This site, in addition to carrying a full line of pet products, has extensive community features that give pet owners a place to get it all out of their system: A sample discussion topic is “tell us some of the silly names you have for your pet.” Let’s keep that kind of talk online where it belongs.

Wine.com
The greatest virtue of Wine.com, formerly Virtual Vineyards, is its user-friendly, easy-to-understand search tool, which makes anyone feel like a wine know-it-all. And it treats you the same whether you’re going to buy the $325 Pinot Noir or just click on the “bang for the buck” specials.

Cyberian Outpost
This computer-hardware and -software has a sales push embedded in its checkout process that obviously helps itself but can help you as well — it unobtrusively alerts you to other products that would complement your purchase. If you’re buying a G3 Powerbook, for example, Outpost shows you a raft of software and accessories that go with the computer. If its pitch were in-your-face, you would hate it. The cool part is you don’t; it comes across as helpful.

BEST IDEA FOR A SITE:

CarsDirect.com
Its car-buying process allows you to bypass the dealer entirely. The interface is easy to use. You pick out the car you want, and as you add options like a CD player or side air bags, you see the price go up instantly. As soon as you begin the process, you also get a delivery date.

RocketCash.com
It almost sounds crazy, but it works. Here’s a way for parents to let their credit-cardless children shop online. You can set up an account for your kids and give them lump sums or even allowances. Then the children can make purchases at affiliated merchants without giving out personal information. Parents can also restrict sites they don’t want their children visiting.

TheKnot.com
Gift registries online make sense, and this site shows why. Here, you can have friends buy you china, linen, an outboard motor or even pay down a part of some newlyweds’ mortgage. A similar site that just launched and is worth visiting is Wishclick.com. Instead of offering up its own product selection like TheKnot, it lets you carve a gift list from the vastness of e-commerce sites everywhere.

MOST CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:

Disney
The Disney name gives this site the closest thing it could have to a captive audience, but it still treats visitors like honored guests. Most surveys give Disney high marks for retaining its corporate character while making it easy to get at all the stuff your kids want.

DVD Express
Most stores carry the same stock of DVDs. But this site appears to have the greatest inventory not just of movies but also of fun paraphernalia such as movie posters and gear with movie-studio logos. Plus, it’s known for pleasing shoppers.

Preview Travel
Part outlet store and part liquidator’s auction, the best feature of the auction half is that it never refers to people who purchase products as “buyers” but rather as “winners.” OnSale successfully gives shopping the air of sport — which helps explain its hugely male demographic.

REI
Part outlet store and part liquidatorÕs auction, the best feature of the auction half is that it never refers to people who purchase products as “buyers” but rather as “winners.” OnSale successfully gives shopping the air of sport — which helps explain its hugely male demographic.

BEST GIMMICKS:

Landsí End
Already getting high marks from shoppers for its usability, the clothing-seller site upped its game in September when it began offering two new features: Lands’ End Live, which lets you enter your phone number and receive a creepy-quick phone call from a customer-service rep; and Shop with a Friend, which allows two people in remote locations to get online, page through the site together, use text-based chat and drop purchases into the same basket.

Garden.com
Site designers employ soft green hues and flower-bud images so artfully on this home page, they make your computer seem like the perfectly logical place to start working on a garden. Everything about this site makes you want to buy plants. Coming this Christmas: an interactive station where you can design and buy your own wreath.

Drugstore.com
This site understands that people buying shampoo and deodorant are simply crossing things off their to-do list and want to move quickly. It has armed the site with a feature called “1-click” — pioneered by its online cousin Amazon — which lets you buy one thing after another, a click at a time.

WorldSpy
A place to comparison shop and research products, this site has plans in the works to offer free Internet service without forcing a user to watch a bunch of ads. How? Free surfers will have to start every trek from WorldSpy’s home page.

When we talk of banner ad placement optimization, there is a lot of research that follows.

1. The very first step includes making a proper selection of the merchants, whom you wish to promote.
2. Once you have made this selection, you may then start developing content in support of your choice. In other words, you need to convince the users as to why you chose to promote the particular merchant.
3. This is finally followed by the actual banner placement. Banner placement depends largely on the site layout. Depending upon the size of the margins, you can place ads of variable width size. However, one thing to remember here is that, the header for the banner ad should be appropriate enough to send a clear message to the users.
4. While the side marginal ads are usually smaller in size, for horizontally designed layouts, it is advisable to have the squarer or longer banner ads.
5. Whichever way you may decide to place your banner ad, the main concern is that, your ad should blend well with the feel and look of your main site. This is so because, visitors always prefer to have consistent layouts.

The prime aim of any banner ad is to send out a message to the users and instigate a call of action. Unless a banner ad is capable of this, it cannot be considered to be the best and all the above mentioned steps ensure that you receive the best banner ad placement results.

• Using their site to sell a product
• Building a subscription list for marketing purposes
• Building links and increasing exposure to help with ad/referral conversion

Based on this information, I think it’s fair to conclude that professional designs are really only open to the following people:

• Those with a plan
• Those with a lot of money

I never really thought of it this way until this morning, but it’s definitely true. Professional blog designs are a luxury item. Look at it like this: plenty of businesses buy 60″ HD TV’s for their stores and displays, but only individual consumers who have money and really want a big, bad TV would ever actually kick down and buy one.

Here are some shoestring marketing ideas that can help you get the visitors you need at the least cost possible:

1. Create the best content you can with the best products you can possibly offer. Your content is your best advertisement – if visitors love your content, then they will go back and spread the word to others.

2. Make it easy for users to recommend your site. Viral marketing is very important — and easy to tap on the Web. But give your users the tools. Get a Recommend this Site script from websites such as cgiscripts.com and similar directories of scripts. Some even go as far as giving incentives to those who recommend the site to their friends. If only 10 people go to your site, but these 10 people invite 10 more – that’s additional traffic that you get for FREE!

Recommend Site Scripts (various) http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Big Nose Bird Recommend this Site http://bignosebird.com/carchive/birdcast.shtml
CGI Resource Index http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Hostscripts http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Site_Recommendation/index.html

3. Rank well in the search engines (organic search results, not the pay per click). SEs can be a big source of traffic. The key is to create the best content in your niche. If you have good content, other websites will gladly link to you and offer your site as a resource to their audience. Check the on-page factors and be sure to get linked from authority sites in your topic area.

If you are going to read only one piece on search engine optimization, I suggest you read Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com’s “Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: 26 steps to 15k a day.” http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm

SEO for Google http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/google.htm
SEO for Yahoo! http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/yahoo.htm
SEO for MSN http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/msn.htm
Tying It Together: SEO For The Big Three http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/seo.htm

4. Send out press releases. While outfits charge as much as $650 per release, there are free press release submission places on the Web. Press releases allow you to (a) attract media attention; (b) get more back links to your website without sending each website an email request; and (c) get more visibility especially if your press release gets in Google News or Yahoo News. My website (see my profile) accepts free press release submission (no strings attached!)

5. Submit articles. Write articles and submit them to websites accepting author submissions. You get exposure for your business; establishes you as an authority in your field, and allows you to get backlinks for your website. If 50 websites publish your article and it contains a link back to your website, then you easily get 50 links from a single article. The more links you have, the greater your chances for increasing your search engine rankings.

Here is a comprehensive list of where to submit your articles http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=AhzreGmnCUicOoyedqypscUjzKIX?qid=1006022407481

6. Improve your conversion. Getting visitors is one thing; getting them to buy your products is a whole different story. Read the article “10 Ways to Convert Visitors to Buyers” http://www.powerhomebiz.com/072005/conversion.htm for tips on how to improve your conversion rates.

7. Post a link to your site for free where it is allowed (always read the Terms of Use). Examples are:

Craigslist http://www.craigslist.com
Google Base http://base.google.com
Classifieds for Free http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/...
Text Link Exchange http://www.txtswap.com/
Recycler.com http://www.recycler.com/
Yahoo Classifieds http://classifieds.yahoo.com/
US Free Ads http://www.usfreeads.com/

• Creation of RSS feeds for the dissemination and syndication of news;
• Submission of articles to high-value article sites;
• Updates to the meta information, including adjusting copy where appropriate to target specific key phrases;
• Creation of a presence in the Facebook community;
• Setting up a Twitter account to post weekly news as well as breaking news;
• Development of an on-site blog with regular updates, linking the headline from the home page so the search engines see movement;
• Writing and submitting to blogs related to their industry;
• Where circumstances permit, post regular podcasts, including YouTube and Google videos.

To sum up, we need to create a method, typically via case studies, by which companies not only see the value in SEM but, more importantly, how they ought to be participating in it.

Our suggestion for Search Engine Marketing (SEM) beginner:

• become the SEM professional writer!
• become www.dmoz.org registered editor!

Following the basic rules for smart in-store shopping will serve you well when shopping over the Internet. The extra challenge the Internet presents is that some of the clues you use, perhaps even unconsciously, when shopping in person are missing when you shop online. Since the electronic merchant you deal with may be in another town or province, or even on a different continent, you cannot walk around the premises and get a feel for the place, its products or personnel.

Link Research From the Search Engines

• Yahoo! Site Explorer – allows you to see what pages you have indexed as well as the backlinks to those pages
• Google Webmaster Central – allows you to sign up for Google Sitemaps, shows some crawling errors, broken links, and a fairly comprehensive view of your backlinks. You can also add anchor text checking to Google Webmaster Central by using this free Greasemonkey script.

Other Free Link Analysis Tools

• Xenu Link Sleuth – Downloadable software which makes it fast and easy to find broken links on your site.
• Backlink Watch – shows backlinks and anchor text used in the backlinks

Paid Backlink Analysis Tools

• Advanced Link Manager – downloadable software in combination with Advanced Web Ranking for $149.
• LinkScape – similar to Majestic SEO, with a few more features, but limits your search depth to 500 results.
• Majestic SEO – link anchor index that allows you to download an in depth link profile for any site.

Monitoring and Maintaining Your Quality Index
In your account, ad quality is represented by your quality index. You will see the quality index shown as one to five bars—the more bars an ad has, the higher its quality. Monitoring your ads’ quality indices, which are displayed on the Ad Group details page, can help you figure out which ads need more work.

Writing Effective Ad Copy
Well-written ads get the attention of your customers and may improve your click-through rate (CTR) and ad quality. Here are some tips for writing great ads:

Find out which Ads Work Best
Make sure you use ad testing, also known as A/B testing, to test multiple ads. When you create more than one ad in an ad group, our system will automatically display the higher performing ads more frequently in search results. With different ad copy, you can see which ads attract the most customers.

Still hungry for more information? Visit our Help Center.