As VoIP’s consumer popularity hit an all-time high in 2006 — reaching more than 7 million subscribers in the United States alone — businesses of all sizes were forced to sit up and take notice. With possible cost savings of up to 40 percent, and the business VoIP industry projected to double by 2010, VoIP is one four-letter word that small and medium-sized business owners can no longer ignore.

How Does VoIP Work?

What exactly is VoIP and how do you know if it’s right for your business? VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, allows callers to place phone calls from almost anywhere using a broadband Internet connection. As the acronym implies, VoIP works by transferring voice signals over Internet lines and public/private data networks, rather than traditional analog phone lines.

VoIP calls are placed using ordinary telephones, computers, or special VoIP phones, depending on the service provider and personal preference. VoIP users place calls in the same way they always have, simply by picking up the phone and dialing a number. Those with computer-based service place calls by using a headset or a computer microphone.

VoIP users can place local, long distance, and international calls to any phone number in the world, whether it’s a land-line, cell phone, or another VoIP user. Like traditional phone service, the only difference in placing a local call and an international call is cost.

Business VoIP Users Enjoy Cost Savings, Increased Flexibility

Today, most business owners switch to business VoIP for two primary reasons – significant cost savings and increased productivity. Typical business VoIP telephone system plans offer a low, flat monthly rate for local and long-distance calling. And, international calls typically cost just pennies per minute. The result: lower phone bills.

Beyond the bottom line, another feature that appeals to small and medium-sized business owners is the flexibility of business VoIP telephone services. As companies grow and change, business VoIP offers the ability to easily scale their phone system up or down. Companies that are planning to move offices or add users find business VoIP phone systems to be an effective solution, especially those with multiple employees in different locations.

Of course, one of the primary motivations to switch is the ability to eliminate the hidden fees and complex billing of traditional phone companies and gain more control over the phone system.

Calling Features Make Users More Productive

Many business VoIP telephone plans provide features such as three-way calling, voice mail and caller ID, at no additional charge. However, additional VoIP-specific features actually make employees more productive. According to a study conducted by Sage Research, VoIP features save employees an average of up to three hours per week.
These features include:
1) integration of voice mail and faxes with your e-mail system,
2) remote office features that allow satellite offices to function as part of the main office,
3) auto-attendant systems, and 4) call routing to employees regardless of location.

Even with these benefits, VoIP isn’t right for every business. For instance, voice quality can vary depending on the Internet connection. If your business uses a dial-up Internet connection, VoIP is not for you.

Because some firewall ports must be open in order to allow voice data transmission, another common issue is network security fears. The reality: it is often easier to tap in to a physical phone line than a digital line. And, listening in on VoIP transmissions is nearly impossible if the proper network security precautions are taken.

To determine how VoIP-ready your company is today, visit http://voipreview.org/voipspeedtester.aspx to test your Internet connection and determine how many phone lines your connection can support.
How to Make the Switch

Switching to business VoIP has never been easier. More provider options are available today than ever before, and cost of service and equipment is falling. Of course, savvy business owners must do their homework to find the right service, features, and provider.

To help find information and help make the decision, business owners can use comparison resources like www.VoipReview.org, a shopping and comparison source for residential and business VoIP phone service, for information about plans, features, and prices. The site even allows users to purchase VoIP service directly from providers after finding their provider of choice.

As it quickly becomes the modern standard in business, there’s no question that VoIP is the future of phoning. The only question is: when will your company join the revolution?

You've probably heard before a lot of hype about how much money you can make with affiliate programs. Maybe you've even set up a site yourself, only to find that after buying the domain, a few bucks a month in hosting, software or a web designer to design your site, etc., that the piddly affiliate fees hardly even covered your cost. Well, here's the hype-free way to really make money with an Amazon.com affiliate site. And it'll only take a day to make the site. The secret? Low cost, low effort.

Here's How:

1. If you don't already know it, learn some basic HTML. You have to do this to keep your costs down and still get what you want. Even if the site is basically laid out for you, you're going to need to know how to insert images, create hyperlinks, and do some basic text formatting. Our HTML Guide offers a free 10-week HTML class and a great collection of beginning HTML tutorials. Get over any anxiety you have about this. Just do it. You'll thank me for it later.

2. Decide on your topic. You're going to be doing product reviews and recommendations, so pick a topic that you enjoy and know something about. If you can't stay passionate about the topic, that will show, and it also won't hold your interest. Choose a narrow enough niche to be distinctive, e.g., bands from your city, left-handed guitarists, music for a certain kind of dancing, authors of a certain religion, books about arts & crafts, etc.

3. Choose your domain name. Make it keyword-rich, not clever. Think how people will find your site in the search engines. Here are some ideas (all available, by the way):
Music: BandsFromTexas.com, BandOutOfBoston.com, SouthpawGuitarists.com, ClassicPsychedelia.com, Non-Stop-Hip-Hop.com, Merengue-Music.com
Books: Mormon-Authors.com, Arts-and-Crafts-Books.com, Books-by-Stephen-King.com, ClassicBusinessBooks.com
Others: Best-Baby-Toys.com, MomsMags.com, FelliniMovies.com

4. Register your domain name. If you're not technically inclined at all, register your domain wherever you set up your hosting in step 5. Otherwise, you can save a few bucks by choosing a lower-cost provider. Not a big deal for one or two sites, but it can be for ten or twenty. I use GoDaddy, who have great domain management tools and are less than $10 a year. The least expensive I've found from a reputable source is 1&1, whose price is under $6 a year (last I checked).

5. Set up your web hosting. This is where most people get burned. For this kind of site, you do not need $10 a month web hosting! Check out Discount-Hosting.com for no-frills hosting with adequate functionality and bandwidth, for around $10 a year! If you want more features, or especially if you're planning to run multiple sites, see GeekHosting.com or Multidomain-Hosting.com.

6. Install weblog software. "Weblog, you say?" Yes. It will give your site all the structure you need, plus make it easy to quickly post new content. My pick is WordPress, which is open source (i.e., free), easy to install and use, and yet very powerful. Download it and follow their installation instructions. Turn on notifications to Weblogs.com and Blo.gs. In WordPress, this is under Options | RSS/RDF Feeds, Track-Ping-backs.

7. Make it pretty. Free templates for WordPress are available at Not That Ugly. Choose a style you like and then tweak it to suit your tastes and the theme of your site.

8. Set up categories. Most blog software allows you to create sub-categories to help organize your entries. This will help visitors narrow in even more specifically on their interests. For example, BandsFromTexas.com might have one group of categories for genre — rock, country, blues, etc. — and another for city of origin — Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, etc.

9. Sign up as an Amazon Associate. It's simple and free. Just visit Amazon and click on the Join Associates link at the bottom of the page (here's a direct link for your convenience). Your site should already have at least the basic setup done, even if you don't have any content there yet.

10. Create your blog posting bookmarks/links. There are two links that are going to be essential for you to make this easy. First is the blog posting link. In your blog software, on the posting page (see their instructions), at the bottom of the page there should be a "bookmarklet". Click on the link (and hold the mouse) and drag it up to your Links toolbar in your browser (assuming Internet Explorer), or your Favorites menu. This will allow you to blog a product with one mouse click.

11. Create your Amazon Build-A-Link bookmark/link. This will make it easy to build the link with your affiliate ID built in. Log in to Associates Central, look in the left navigation sidebar, go to Build-A-Link, and under Static Links, find Individual Items. Click and drag this onto your Links toolbar or Favorites menu.

12. Build your first link. Go to Amazon and find the product you want to review. Scroll down to Product Details and find the ASIN or ISBN. Double-click on the number itself to select it, then right-click and choose Copy. Click on your Amazon Build-A-Link link. Right-click in the search field and choose Paste. Change the selection from Served Link to You Host. Click Go. Your selection should show up. Click Get HTML. Choose the kind of link you want, select the highlighted text and copy it.

13. Blog your review. Now click on your blog posting link (Press It! by default in WordPress). If you're using WordPress, you should now see two pieces of link code in your posting form, the first one ending with "Associates Build-A-Link >< /a >". Delete through that point. The second part is a link to the product with your Amazon Associate ID built in. Now just write your product review, choose the appropriate categories for it, and hit Publish.

14. Build out your site. Before you promote your site, you want to have some substantial content there. Write several product reviews. Have at least 2-3 in each category you've created. You may also want to make a categories for articles, news, and commentary about your topic. The more content your site has, the better. And the great thing is that while you're writing all this, the search engines are getting notified automatically, assuming you turned on the notifications mentioned in step 6.

15. Promote your site. The best free way to do this is to communicate with other bloggers writing about similar topics, and to participate in online communities where your topic is discussed. See the Online Business Networking category for ideas, as well as the Internet Marketing category.