I read an interesting story on how social networking is influencing our buying decisions - as it always has done. The new aspect to social networking as a marketing tool is that the power of the internet increases its impact almost without limit. While the social bookmarking sites are a new idea to people like me, the article says that they will be an everyday part of life in the same way as search engines have blended into everyday life over the past ten years. So in future consumers will expect to get recommendations through their online networks for their purchases. In the UK, the market share of blog traffic is driven evenly by social networks and search, according to Hitwise. Blogs receive one quarter of visitors from social networks or chat rooms and 22 per cent from search engines. The challenge for bloggers appears to be how to convert visitors into revenue by ensuring they take the most desired action when they move on - at present . Usually that will mean sending them to a shopping or classified page, but at present only six per cent are doing so. Read the full article:

If you search for the Florida resort of Orlando online, you are very likely to get a listing for Disney close to the top of the page, because Orlando is home to the major world class Disney attractions.  If you are planning a trip to this area and you need to buy tickets for Disney, make sure you look at the website of Orlandofuntickets.com.  They are highly experienced and they been selling Disney World Tickets for a more than twenty years.  They guarantee you the best prices. If you looking for a ticket package such as Downtown Disney Pleasure Island, or the Water Parks they are also sure to give you the best prices on tickets. For the lowest prices and always best personal service, visit Orlandofuntickets.com.

Adsense Decoded is the new, much discussed CD based learning program developed by an Australian publisher who claims to have found a new way to make a high income from Adsense. ‘Adsense Decoded’ is intended as a guide that uses white hat techniques to improve your earnings from contextual advertising. The package was designed and developed by Patrick Hillenbrand, who made $10,000+ from Adsense in the FIRST month that he put it into practice. How did he do it? Find out about increasing your Adsense earnings here.

One important thing I have learned since I started working from home is that it is actually harder to keep up with the regular duties involved in keeping up with family and friends.  For example,  making sure that I give sufficient thought to choosing a good anniversary gift
-  partners get quite upset if these are neglected, so make sure you find something good.

If there is one piece of office furniture that is indispensable for anyone working from home, it is a well designed computer chair. Even where there is no room for a large desk, you need a chair that supports your back and puts you at the right level to view your monitor.  This one is called the 24 hour chair, but please try to take a break earlier than that.

Making money from home does not only mean working online - there are plenty of businesses that you can start up with almost no investment.  One of these is the Party Plan, mainly an idea for women.  Examples include jewellery parties and lingerie, as long as you can keep a straight face if someone orders a crotchless panty you can make cash fast.

When you are seeking link exchanges the anchor text is all-important. What this means, and it took me a while to get my head round it, is that your inbound links to your chose web pages are covering your chose key words. For example a link to this post could be listed as Increase Page Rank or a link to a post explaining how to Make Money Blogging would be linked as shown because those are the keyword phrases on which I would hope that the search engines will pick it up. Then any visitor wanting to find out how to design anchor text in inbound links will be directed here.

If you are working from home, spending twenty four hours a day in the same place, it is a good idea to separate your work and leisure space, otherwise you will find it difficult to wind down after working online all day. Any attic or basement in your home can be converted into a home theatre on a small budget, then you can equip the room with some fun bar stools like the one pictured.  Popcorn, anyone?

To a blogger a digital camera is an essential tool. You can take shots to enrich your blog posts - who wants to look at pages of dense copy? Depending on your website topic you may need to use some imagination but think laterally. For example if you have a blog on the topic of Home Business you can include shots of home offices, well known or less famous entrepreneurs, activities that home business might get involved in - you get the idea?

Everything we buy has an energy cost somewhere down the line and window coverings are no exception.  The fashion for wooden venetian blinds is in full swing over here but there is an alternative - faux wood blinds - that do not use diminishing resources.  Instead they are made from synthetic materials.  They are also fully washable and unaffected by humidity.  These alternatives look just as good as wood for longer.

With the completion of the house move it is a chance to reflect on which companies made life easier - and which did not. Not only did we need to organise all the normal house utilities like meter reading, we also ordered new furniture and services for the new house. Here is the roll of honour - or dishonour.

Furniture -

1. Sofas from a company called CH enterprise. They held on to the items for us and delivered them the day after we moved in - very friendly, and the driver called us one hour before arriving with the goods.

2. table and chairs from The Furnishing Store. I bought via their eBay site, as I did with the sofas. These guys incurred the wrath of eBay when a difficult customer started a number of disputes against them. This caused me some worry when I tried to contact them for delivery and found the eBay shop was inactive. But I got through to the MD by phone and they also delivered the day after the move.

3. Coffee Table and TV stand from Pine and Oak Express. They also held the items for us until after the move, but their order did not arrive. I rang the next day and they found that the courier company has mislaid them. No problem for us: they sent two more out the same day using a different courier. 10/10.

More and more of us are starting to consider online share trading from home. The reason behind this is that they read so much about how easy it is to make money from stock options trading. Read more »