http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/designing-a-website-that-produces-results-in-just-three-easy-steps.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/designing-a-website-that-produces-results-in-just-three-easy-steps.html Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
So how can you ensure that your website does an effective job of presenting a professional and trust-worthy image for your business? You can start by following the following three steps:

1. Hire a professional website design company. Your nephew’s imaginary friend may be willing to design your website for two hundred dollars, but you be getting a two hundred dollar website which certainly will not present the type of image that you need. When you work with a website design company, you will invest more cash initially, but it will pay off in increased sales thanks to a more effective design, improved usability and increased search engine exposure.

2. Hire a professional copywriter. You know your industry inside and out, but what may seem like basic concepts to you may seem like rocket science to others . A professional copywriter has the experience and talent to present your message in a clear and compelling manner, making it easy for your visitors to understand why they should do business with you instead of your competitors.

3. Include all applicable contact information. It may surprise you to know that some visitors will actually call you or stop by your office if they have access to this information. Go figure! Instead of viewing this as extra work, think about how much easier it will be to convert these prospects to clients when you can communicate directly with them. It also helps to make your business appear more reliable .

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Is your website doing its job? Invest is a new website design with Wildfire Marketing Group and watch your business grow like wildfire!

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/do-you-deserve-a-%231-ranking.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/do-you-deserve-a-%231-ranking.html Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
If you are a real estate agent in Tampa, it would make sense to want a #1 ranking for the keyword phrase “Tampa Real Estate” but this would be far outside the budget of most agents. Let’s explore the reasons behind this.

The real estate industry is extremely competitive to begin with, and the keyword phrase “Tampa Real Estate” returns almost 3 million results that you would have to compete with. These are 3 million websites run by real estate agents that have already been marketing online and many of them have invested heavily in SEO for several years. You’re not going to out rank these websites overnight. Search engine optimization usually takes time to deliver significant results, but for a keyword phrase like this, you could be looking at a year or more. Why is it so competitive? Because there is a massive amount of money to be earned by the website controlling the top listing.

Google indicates that over 165,000 searches are conducted each month for this keyword phrase. Assuming that you are only able to convert .05% of these searchers into leads, that gives you 825 leads each month. If you then convert just 1% of those leads into a home sale, you will have sold 8 (8.25 to be exact) homes. With an average home price $189,000 and an average agent commission of 6%, the revenue produced by that #1 ranking is $92,720 for that month. Now, if you’re an experienced agent, you may be able to convert many more leads to home sales, and if you have a professionally designed website, many more of your visitors may contact you, so your numbers could be higher.

What does it take to earn a #1 rank for a highly-competitive phrase?

Contrary to what some people may want you to believe, SEO isn’t magic. The technical aspects behind it range from elementary to insanely complex but the most critical aspect is perseverance and hard work. One of the reasons that so many people fail at business (especially on the Internet) is because they give up when they don’t see the results they want right away. Millions of people have been conned into the idea that because computers and the Internet are involved, online marketing is just a matter of clicking a mouse. In reality, you have to provide a quality product or service and add value in some manner. The search engines have factored this into their algorithms and they know that untrustworthy companies will not last long. That’s one of the reasons why it takes time for new sites to get noticed. Over time, the search engines learn which sites can be trusted and which can’t.

Just because you open a retail store today and advertise everywhere you can, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to become a nationwide chain next month, or even next year. It took Walmart nearly sixty years to become the company that you’re familiar with today. Business online works the same way. Instead of looking for overnight success, focus on doing a little bit more every day. Write quality content, produce useful and entertaining podcasts, build inbound links and participate on other blogs, forums and social networks. Always remember that the price of success is hard work and perseverance, and over time, you will see the rewards that you deserve.

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Is your website doing what is should be doing? Invest is a new website design with Wildfire Marketing Group and watch your business grow like wildfire!

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/improving-your-companys-exposure-and-profit-in-an-economic-slowdown.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/improving-your-companys-exposure-and-profit-in-an-economic-slowdown.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
When money is tight, what is a company to do? How can you continue to market when all logic implies that you simply can’t afford to? It can be done; you just have to get more creative and more aggressive.

Perhaps you have been running a radio advertising campaign that is now out of your budget. Most business owners would simply pull the plug, but an alternative would be to take a different direction by producing your own podcasts and making them available on your website. For example, if you run a financial planning firm, your podcasts could focus on explaining financial terms, outlining particular investing strategies and helping callers with their specific questions. In addition to the exposure on your own website, you can submit your podcasts to various directories, such as Apple’s podcast directory, Podcast Alley and Podcast.com for even more exposure.

If cable advertising was part of your marketing plan that you can no longer afford, you could consider starting your own weekly television program. You may be thinking “If I can’t afford to advertise on cable, I certainly can’t afford to start my own program.” but the good news is that it may be free because in many areas, the government has required the local cable companies to provide channels for public access programs at no charge. This means you will have at your disposal a set, all of the necessary equipment and possibly even a crew to run it. All you need to do is develop the material. You will need to contact your local cable company for details.

You should already be blogging, and your blog should be hosted on your own website rather than one of the free sites such as Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. This helps to give your existing website visitors insight to your company’s personality and experience while providing a boost to your organic search engine optimization. If the information that you produce is useful it will also encourage your visitors to come back more frequently, which will help you to convert more of them to paying clients/customers over time. Success in this realm will depend on your ability to produce original content rather than the rehashed posts that plague much of the blogosphere today. Your choice of blog platform is not a critical factor, but I personally believe that Wordpress is the best one available. Wordpress, along with a number of other blog platforms are available free of charge and can be installed with a few simple clicks through the admin panel at most hosting companies.

One powerful tool that most companies can benefit from is email marketing because it is relatively easy and extremely cost-effective. Constant Contact makes it easy to build and manage your list, design and send your emails, and track your results through a web-based application. You should carefully plan your email marketing campaign though; send your message too sporadically and you won’t achieve the results you’re looking for, send your message too often and you’ll annoy your recipients. As with blogging, you should also ensure that you are producing original, useful content. Everyone gets more than enough emails already so if you want them to pay attention to yours, it needs to stand out.

One weakness of many companies is their customer service. For many small businesses, it is easy to close the sale, collect the money and finish the job, but they often overlook the customer during the process and rarely follow up with them afterwards. They also fail to realize that sometimes, their customers just don’t understand their business or processes and may need more communication throughout the relationship. This is a tough flaw to for most business owners to spot because it requires a great deal of objectivity on a personal level. It is easy to look at a balance sheet and see exactly what your revenue was last year, but it is a lot more difficult to look at yourself and see how you could have been wrong in how you handled some of your customers. For most companies, it is best to bring in customer service consultants for this. While there will be an investment needed to do so, it pays off several times over though repeat business and referrals.

Networking is another powerful tool for developing new business, but it does take time to build effective relationships. You can start by looking for a few networking groups in your city, but don’t forget to take advantage of online social networking tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook and APSense. Just remember, networking is not about the quick sale, its all about building relationships. In many cases, you won’t end up doing business with the people you come in direct contact with. Instead, they may refer other people to you. Be helpful and patient and the results from this approach will come over time.

The economy may not be doing as well as you may like but there is no reason for your company’s exposure and revenue not to increase. You just need to be creative and work a little bit harder than your competitors. The leverage you gain now can catapult you well ahead of them when the economy picks back up.

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If you want your business to grow like wildfire, contact Wildfire Marketing Group today. We offer a full range of marketing services, such as website design, graphic design, search engine optimization and much more.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/seo/search-engine-optimization-black-hat-and-white-hat.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/seo/search-engine-optimization-black-hat-and-white-hat.html Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
White SEO conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.

White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose. White hat SEO is not exact like website promotion, but they are similar in certain ways.

Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.

Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods. Such penalties can be applied automatically either by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual site review.

One example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of black hat SEO. Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's list.

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If you want your business to grow like wildfire, contact Wildfire Marketing Group today. We offer a full range of marketing services, such as website design, graphic design, search engine optimization and much more.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/do-you-deserve-a-%231-ranking.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/do-you-deserve-a-%231-ranking.html Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
If you are a real estate agent in Tampa, it would make sense to want a #1 ranking for the keyword phrase “Tampa Real Estate” but this would be far outside the budget of most agents. Let’s explore the reasons behind this.

The real estate industry is extremely competitive to begin with, and the keyword phrase “Tampa Real Estate” returns almost 3 million results that you would have to compete with. These are 3 million websites run by real estate agents that have already been marketing online and many of them have invested heavily in SEO for several years. You’re not going to out rank these websites overnight. Search engine optimization usually takes time to deliver significant results, but for a keyword phrase like this, you could be looking at a year or more. Why is it so competitive? Because there is a massive amount of money to be earned by the website controlling the top listing.

Google indicates that over 165,000 searches are conducted each month for this keyword phrase. Assuming that you are only able to convert .05% of these searchers into leads, that gives you 825 leads each month. If you then convert just 1% of those leads into a home sale, you will have sold 8 (8.25 to be exact) homes. With an average home price $189,000 and an average agent commission of 6%, the revenue produced by that #1 ranking is $92,720 for that month. Now, if you’re an experienced agent, you may be able to convert many more leads to home sales, and if you have a professionally designed website, many more of your visitors may contact you, so your numbers could be higher.

What does it take to earn a #1 rank for a highly-competitive phrase?

Contrary to what some people may want you to believe, SEO isn’t magic. The technical aspects behind it range from elementary to insanely complex but the most critical aspect is perseverance and hard work. One of the reasons that so many people fail at business (especially on the Internet) is because they give up when they don’t see the results they want right away. Millions of people have been conned into the idea that because computers and the Internet are involved, online marketing is just a matter of clicking a mouse. In reality, you have to provide a quality product or service and add value in some manner. The search engines have factored this into their algorithms and they know that untrustworthy companies will not last long. That’s one of the reasons why it takes time for new sites to get noticed. Over time, the search engines learn which sites can be trusted and which can’t.

Just because you open a retail store today and advertise everywhere you can, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to become a nationwide chain next month, or even next year. It took Walmart nearly sixty years to become the company that you’re familiar with today. Business online works the same way. Instead of looking for overnight success, focus on doing a little bit more every day. Write quality content, produce useful and entertaining podcasts, build inbound links and participate on other blogs, forums and social networks. Always remember that the price of success is hard work and perseverance, and over time, you will see the rewards that you deserve

--
Is your website doing its job? Invest is a new website design with Wildfire Marketing Group and watch your business grow like wildfire!

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/how-to-find-the-right-web-design-firm-for-your-business.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/how-to-find-the-right-web-design-firm-for-your-business.html Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
Look at their website. Is it well designed? If not, you should avoid them. If they won’t take the time to design an attractive website for their own company, they certainly can’t design an appealing website for you. This would be a lot like a sales woman showing up in torn up jeans and a stained t-shirt and asking you to ignore their appearance. It just doesn’t work.

Look at their portfolio. Do they have an extensive collection of websites that they have designed for their clients? Are they each original or do they all look the same? If your website will just be another cookie-cutter website, your company won’t stand out from your competitors.

Is their code valid? This may seem like an insignificant detail that doesn’t matter much, but in reality, it is a big indicator of their attention to detail. Anyone can whip up a website in Dreamweaver but it takes a real professional to create a powerful website design that is properly coded to W3C standards. Aside from being the correct way to do it, it also ensures that your website displays correctly across a variety of browser/computer combos.

Does their website rank for competitive keywords? Designing your website is just part of the battle. People won’t visit simply because it is there. A website that is optimized to achieve the best possible results in the search engines is going to give you a greater advantage over your competition by helping you to earn organic search traffic. If their own website doesn’t rank for any competitive keyword phrases, chances are that yours won’t either if you choose them to design your website.

Are they able to handle a project of your size? This can go both ways – if your project is too large or too small for them, they won’t be able to give you the best results possible. If they are a small agency with a staff of two, chances are high that they won’t be able to design and implement a website with thousands upon thousands of pages in a timeframe of a few weeks. On the same note, if they are a major web design agency with offices in many countries, chances are high that a small five page website won’t be very high on their list of priorities.

You should choose a website design agency that is best suited to your project.

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Is your website doing what is should be doing? Invest is a new web design with Wildfire Marketing Group and watch your business grow like wildfire!

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/what-the-election-taught-us-about-marketing.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/what-the-election-taught-us-about-marketing.html Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
The campaigns that we saw during this election cycle have validated a lot of what those of us in the marketing field have know for a long time. They have also outlined a pretty clear blueprint for any business owner who is serious about building a solid marketing foundation. So if you’re ready to take your company to the next level you should follow the steps that made the Obama campaign successful.

Branding can mean the difference between success and failure

Effective branding is the foundation of all marketing efforts. Branding determines how your message is conveyed. It is the image of who you are and helps people to quickly decide if they related to you or oppose you. This polarity is important. A powerful brand can make people feel like they belong to a particular community, ideology or movement. When people feel that they are a part of something, they become extremely passionate about it. Look at the United States Marine Corp, PETA or Tampa Bay Buccaneer fans and you can see that their believers share an almost blinding commitment and personal pride in belonging. They talk about their beliefs at every chance, try to recruit others and remain committed through the good and the bad times. Barrack Obama built this type of brand. John McCain didn’t. Obama’s supporters were energized, active and outspoken, while McCain’s were only moderately engaged. Seth Godin makes a very valid point that “Motivating the committed outperforms persuading the uncommitted.”

Exposure builds more exposure

Despite showing a significant lead in the polls leading to the election, Obama continued wave after wave of advertising across a variety of mediums, sometimes outspending McCain seven to one. As the election got closer and the lead got smaller, Obama increased the frequency of his advertising.

Most businesses take a different approach and seem to look for every reason to reduce their advertising. When business is going great, they often assume that everyone knows about them so they don’t need to advertise. When business slows down, they try to reduce expenses by reducing advertising and often justify their decision by saying they’ll increase advertising when business picks back up. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way. The more exposure you have, the more that you’re going to get. There are an infinite number of views on any given story, and the more people that are exposed to that story, the more that will opine, and the cycle continues. Use every opportunity you can to create more exposure, such as traditional media, write-ups by bloggers, press releases and event participation, then leverage that into more exposure.

Form sometimes has a greater impact than function

Charisma works, plain and simple. No one has ever accused George Bush of being a genius, despite having some impressive scholastic achievements. This is because of how poorly he communicates. Obama, on the other hand seems to a comparable, or maybe even more proficient orator than Bill Clinton. Regardless of what he is saying, the pattern, tempo and intonation of his speech often makes it more compelling to most people, including those that disagree with him.

The same principles apply to your marketing. Don’t think for a second that your prospects will look at your poorly designed website and understand (or even believe) that you’re more concerned with taking care of your customers than improving your website. They won’t. Instead, they will think that you are a bottom rate company that can’t afford to invest in a professional website designer. They know that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of companies with the same level of skill as yours that also present themselves effectively, so they won’t take the chance. Ensure that all of your marketing materials help you to communicate in a clear, powerful manner and your prospects trust in your company will increase dramatically.

Never underestimate your competition

The lead in the polls that Obama enjoyed through much of his campaign didn’t give him a reason to become complacent because he knew that McCain was a worthy and competent opponent with a history of coming back from the bottom.

In business, we sometimes achieve a certain level of success and then forget how we got there. We begin to ignore our competitors, thinking that they could never reach, let alone, surpass our position in the market. IBM thought this once. So did Yahoo. It didn’t work out so well for either of them as Microsoft and Google quickly took over their former positions as leaders in their respective industries. The same thing can happen to you. Take what ever you’ve done to get where you are and keep doing it. Better yet, increase it a little more each month. Just because you’re in the lead today doesn’t mean you will be tomorrow unless you keep working just as hard at it.

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If you want your business to grow like wildfire, visit Wildfire Marketing Group today. We offer a full range of marketing services, such as website design, graphic design, search engine optimization and much more.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/selecting-the-right-website-design-companies-for-your-business.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/selecting-the-right-website-design-companies-for-your-business.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Look at their website. Is it well designed? If not, you should avoid them. If they can’t take the time to design an appealing website for their own company, they certainly won’t design an appealing website for you. This would be a lot like a sales woman showing up in torn up jeans and a stained t-shirt and asking you to ignore their appearance. It just doesn’t work.

Look at their portfolio. Do they have an extensive collection of websites that they have designed for their clients? Are they each original or do they all look the same? If your website will just be another cookie-cutter website, your company won’t stand out from your competitors.

Is their code valid? This may seem like an insignificant detail that doesn’t matter much, but in reality, it is a big sign of their attention to detail. Anyone can whip up a website in Dreamweaver but it takes a real professional to create a powerful website design that is properly coded to W3C standards. Aside from being the correct way to do it, it also ensures that your website displays properly across a variety of browser/computer combinations.

Does their website rank for competitive keyword phrases\keywords? Designing your website is just part of the battle. People won’t visit just because it is there. A website that is set up to achieve the best possible results in the search engines is going to give you a greater advantage over your competitors by helping you to earn organic search traffic. If their own website doesn’t rank for any competitive keyword phrases, chances are that yours won’t either if you choose them to design your website.

Are they able to handle the size of your project? This can go both ways – if your project is too large or too small for them, they won’t be able to give you the best results possible. If they are a small firm with a staff of two, chances are high that they won’t be able to design and implement a website with thousands upon thousands of pages in a timeframe of a few weeks. On the same note, if they are a major web design firm with offices in multiple countries, chances are high that a small five page website won’t be very high on five page website won’t be very high on their list of priorities. You should choose a website design company that is best suited to your project.

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Is your website doing what is should be doing? Invest is a new web design with Wildfire Marketing Group and watch your business grow like wildfire!

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/importance-of-web-design-for-companies.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/importance-of-web-design-for-companies.html Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500
To a travelling business man, an easy to access mobile website makes his daily schedule of meetings, conferences, and flights a lot more manageable. To the stay-at-home mom who is trying to pay bills while the kids are screaming in the background and dinner is cooking on the stove, a user-friendly and self-explanatory website design could be the reason why she brought her business over to your company. Consumers whan websites that load quickly, are informational, and effectively present their message. They want to login, take care of the business at hand, and log out. They want a search bar and a site map so they can go directly to the page they need, and not waste time searching for a hyperlink. Consumers want a shopping cart they can view, edit, and easily checkout from, when ordering products and services. Companies recognize the demands of today's consumers and a growing number of websites provide consumers self-service capabilities, from ordering to cancelling their products and services.

The level of quality and efficiency of service that consumers hold companies to has been steadily increasing over time. They expect technological advances to provide better, faster and easier methods for conducting account maintenance transactions from anywhere in the world. Due to these demands, businesses have sought ways to provide more cost-effective and streamlined servicing. Business owners have sought methods to ensure their websites are easy to understand and contain quality information which aids in promoting consumer self-servicing. There has been an increased need to constantly maintain and redesign websites to accommodate for such growth and demands. However, the quantity of available methods for account maintenance is insignificant, if the quality of servicing and business websites is insufficient. Despite the world being wrapped up in technological advances and conveniences, consumers have not forgotten the importance of quality service and products.

Business owners utilize various tactics to encompass as many consumers in as many ways possible, thereby ensuring their marketing potential is maximized. By using outbound email capabilities, businesses have found email marketing to be highly effective. Options for email marketing range from the "refer a friend" method to clients requesting additional information directly from their websites. By utilizing marketing mailing, businesses gain the advantage of reaching consumers and marketing their products, at the convenience of consumers. Many businesses take full advantage of how easy and powerful online marketing really is. They offer rebates and discounts for conducting business online, which optimizes both their productivity and business results.

Website design can pose to be a challenge, but business owners truly need to develop websites that are not only easy to use, but efficient and easily accessible as well. Websites need to maintain the same level of operation regardless of how many users are logged in and servicing their accounts. Troubleshooting support is also necessary for assisting consumers when the "frequently asked questions" page doesn't provide the solution for their questions and answers. The volume of assistance reduced by having the FAQ page allows companies to utilize the time and resource elsewhere and provide a more profitable operation. Business owners recognize how redesigning websites and systems provide around the clock and worldwide ease of use and efficiency for taking care of business needs.

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Is your website doing what you need? Invest is a new website design with Wildfire Marketing Group and watch your business grow like wildfire!

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/designing-a-website-that-sells-in-three-steps.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/designing-a-website-that-sells-in-three-steps.html Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500
So how can you ensure that your website does an effective job of presenting a professional and trust-worthy image for your company? You can start by following the following three steps:

1. Hire a professional website design company. Your nephew’s best friend may be willing to design your website for two hundred dollars, but you be getting a two hundred dollar website which definitely will not present the type of image that you need. When you work with a web design company, you will invest more money up-front, but it will pay off in increased revenue thanks to a more effective design, improved usability and increased search engine exposure.

2. Hire a professional copywriter. You know your industry better than most, but what may seem like basic concepts to you may seem like quantum physics to others . A professional copywriter has the education and skills to present your message in a clear and compelling manner, making it easy for your visitors to understand why they should do business with you instead of your competitors.

3. Include all applicable contact information. It may surprise you to know that some people will actually call you or stop by your office if they have access to this information. Who knew? Instead of viewing this as an unnecessary hassle, think about how much easier it will be to convert these prospects to customers when you can speak directly with them. It also helps to make your business appear more trust-worthy.

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Is your website doing what you need? Invest is a new web design with Wildfire Marketing Group and watch your business grow like wildfire!

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>