Learn To Build Cash

At the end of every interview, you will be asked if you have any other questions. Most candidates commonly make the mistake of saying “no” and don’t realize that this can be the kiss of death!

By saying you don’t want to continue the discussion, you could end up sending the wrong signal that you’re not really interested in the job or, worse, in talking to them personally. Yikes!

Remember that Hiring Managers aren’t asking if you have any last minute questions solely because they want to help get you more information. In many instances, this is a calculated move to see how you will respond. Here are some things a manager may want to test you on by asking if you have any final questions…

ARE YOU DETAILED?

They want to see if you are interested in digging deeper into the details of an important topic that was only touched upon lightly earlier in the interview.

ARE YOU SMART?

They want to see if you catch something that was brought up that warrants further discussion. By asking about these things, you demonstrate that you paid attention and could detect that this is something important to discuss further because of how relevant it is to this role.

ARE YOU PREPARED?

They want to see how much work you have put into this interview. Asking your own unique questions demonstrates that you took the time to study the website, job description and their product/service line to prepare a few thoughtful questions.

ARE YOU INTERESTED?

They want to see if you are interested in learning more about this job. Asking more questions says “This job intrigues me and I want to hear more about it.”

Some candidates just get nervous and draw a blank. Other times, they may have used up their good questions on the last guy they just spoke with. Always have some fresh questions stockpiled and ready to go. Here are a few good ideas:

“I noticed you mentioned XXX before when we spoke about your up & coming project. How would you see someone in this role getting involved with that?” (sometimes topics are brought up that would affect this new role but the manager purposefully doesn’t discuss those details. Show them that you caught this and need to know the answer since it will relate to your work)

“You mentioned XXX about the company’s strategic direction. I’m really interested in this. Can you tell me a little more?” (managers may bring up an important topic about the company and leave it as a bit of a cliffhanger by not really finishing the discussion. Show them you care about this type of big picture company information)

“I did some research and read about your new product line. Can you tell me a little more about how this works?” (managers want to know that you came prepared to learn more about the company, its products/services and the job itself. Show them you did prepare and are on the beam with questions that dive deeper into any of these areas)

“I understand you have been with the company for 10 years. That’s great! What do you like most about working here?” (at the end of the day, everyone responds to good old fashioned flattery and probably would love the chance to talk a little about themselves. Let them share with you why they like it so much over there and why their team is a great one to join)

“I’m sure you’ve looked at a lot of applicants. If you don’t mind me asking, what’s going to make you hire someone. What’s the most important quality you are looking for?” (hey…why not ask this? Not only is this a refreshing, conceptual and fun question for them to answer, it will give you an opportunity to sell yourself more effectively into this job)
Always ask a final question and use that last moment to make a great impression!

~Beth Gilfeather
Workbridge Associates
By Mike Cohen, *LION*, Open Networker, TopLinked.com – Lead Recruiter at Workbridge Associates

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You may have noticed a new feature in AdSense ads this past week – variations in the number of text ads we show in any ad unit. We caught up with Brian A., a product manager for AdSense, to pick his brain about this new feature.

How have Google ads changed?

“We’ve updated AdSense to now vary the number of text ads that appear in a given ad unit. When we have a set of highly relevant and useful ads, we give them more of a presence in the ad unit by eliminating other ads. In some cases, if we determine a particular ad performs extremely well on a page, we’ll remove all other ads from the unit and show just this single ad.”

Sounds great for advertisers, but is this good for publishers?

“When we tested this feature, we saw that the increased user attention to these relevant ads resulted in a higher CTR. This means more revenue for publishers.”

Is this good for a site’s visitors?

“Definitely. The better-performing ads are more useful to users and this new feature gives them more presence in the ad unit. We are very careful to consider the user benefits with every feature so we can help our publishers grow their repeat traffic by showing more useful links on their pages.”

Here’s an example of an ad that has been expanded to fill an entire ad unit:

So don’t be surprised if you see fewer ads taking up the same space in your ad units. Google AdSense technology will automatically determine the optimal number of ads to display on your pages and will only show fewer ads when doing so will increase your revenue.

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Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a “per-click” basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you’re up and running. It doesn’t demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier–and more effective–the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position–which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost-effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were 25,000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research. The good news is there isn’t a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are, but they will not cost you anything except time to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and AdWords Select, usually appear on other popular search engines. Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success.

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