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Introduction

Today’s market place is very different than forty-years ago. Forty-years ago if you wanted to open a business you had to have upfront costs, property, large amounts of inventory, and your best bet for advertising was the local paper and direct mail pieces. Of course, this took a lot of effort and even more money. You had to hope and wait for people to get your ad and decide to come and purchase a product from you. Going out and getting them to come into your store would have been a difficult feat.

Additionally, forty-years ago your ability of growth was limited to local purchasers for the most part. If what you had to offer was not in a reasonable distant from your potential consumers, your company suffered. Moreover, because most shopping was done near home, any bad publicity could really hurt your company’s reputation; thus, leading to your company being shut down.

Forty-years ago consumers had to find local places to purchase their goods at; everyday shopping was done within a modest radius from home-base. To know what merchant had new products or sales, one had to wait for either the Wednesday Flyer or the Sunday paper. Options for product purchases barely existed beyond one’s living area.

Jump forward to the modern day and we know all of this has changed. Today, any individual can purchase whatever they desire from anywhere in the world. Most likely shipping will be free and the products returnable. There is nothing that cannot be found – the Internet has everything from the rarest of coffees to cheap rubber bracelets. It does not matter what is wanted, it is there for the purchase. And, that ability to purchase whatever it is wanted can be comparison shopped in the blink of an eye; thus an environment that is exceptional for the buyer and a tough one for merchants.

For business owners the Internet can be hit or miss. There are more customers than one can shake a stick at with an equal amount of competition. Unlike yester years when your nearest competition was a decent amount of distance away and your location added to your bottom for consumers appreciate convenience; the Internet has competition that is breathing down your neck. Competition on the Internet is so close to your proximity that it would seem your could just reach right through the Internet and touch them. They can take tease your customer away long before that customer ever knows you exist. In fact, all your competition has to do is rank better then you on any search engine results page.

Understanding the importance of your competitions proximity is one of the most important things to understand when dealing with marketing attempts on the Internet. Today, there is no distance between you and your competition and you most likely have anything that can not be bought on some other website. Now, when a consumer wants and needs a product or information, all they must do is put there desires into the URL and pages among pages of options displays on the search engine results page.

What you must be concerned with in this situation, when listed amongst your competitors is stand out. In this book, you will learn about the main and most popular techniques to purchasing traffic to you website.

We will discuss pay-per-click methods that are one of the very most popular formats to use. This technique works nicely and if you create an excellent ad, you will gain enough traffic to push you to the next level of success. We will also discuss banner ads that were the first on the block for website marketing ads. They fell from popular use for awhile but in the last few years they have made their way back due to technological advances. These are inexpensive and if done write, valuable.

To add to your arsenal of marketing weapons, we will also discuss email marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Email marketing is a great tool and excellent for targeted marketing attempts when you want to get up-close and personal with potential customers. Email marketing, if done well, will build your own client lists that will prove profitable.

Search Engine Optimization is the king of purchasing website traffic. Search Engine Optimization is not purchasing traffic in the traditional means of the online market place. However, it is worth more than its weight in gold when done properly. Search Engine Optimization can bring in traffic like no other technique and those who understand its value can become the master of their search engine results page listing and rank. What is so pertinent to understanding this technique is that it can eventually lead to you not needing to pay for traffic from other mediums as all. Of course, you will continue to want to use other methods of paid website traffic, but you will be able to become much more selective in your efforts with more to spend on growth.

We will end this book with terms you need to know to start understanding the web marketing industry. When first learning how to build your web site, it can be hard to gather your thoughts and wrap your mind around what is being said. To help in that, terms that are most often discussed in web traffic buying is listed. Not all of these terms are concepts mentioned throughout the book, but they are listed to add to your understanding. Read them as you would the rest of the book. They provide more than just definitions, there are helpful tips to be garnered.

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History of Vegetarianism

To get a good understanding of being a vegetarian, vegetarian food, and cooking it will help to learn about the origins of Vegetarianism. Vegetarianism can be traced back to ancient Egyptian society where many religious sects abstained from eating meat or wearing clothing that was made from animal skins do to their beliefs in reincarnation. The practice could also be found in ancient Greece. Most notably, the famed scholar Pythagoras, known for his contributions in the field of mathematics believed that being a vegetarian was an essential part of being a good human and would help lead to a peaceful existence. The idea of being a vegetarian was hotly debated by the Greeks throughout their civilization. This was one idea that the Romans did not share with the Greeks. Romans saw animals as a source of food and entertainment for the masses.

Vegetarianism in Religion

Adhering to a vegetarian diet is central to many religions. Buddhism shows kindness to all living things and its believers hold many animals to be scared for what they provide to humans whether it is milk or as work animals to help plow fields. Followers of Christianity had different views when it came to being a vegetarian. Christians believe that humans reign over all other living things on Earth meaning that they believe that animals are here for their use whether that means as beasts of burden or as a food source. However, that does not mean that all Christians are carnivores. Throughout history, different sects of Christians have broken with the mainstream beliefs and preached a vegetarian lifestyle. Vegetarianism played a key role for Christians in Eastern Europe; among these groups were the Bogomils that rose up in the 900’s in what is now modern day Bulgaria. The Bogomils were seen as heretics because they spoke out against what they saw as the excesses of monasteries and the Eastern Orthodox Church; they rejected the physical world and forswore the consumption of eggs, meat, and cheese that led them to lead a vegetarian lifestyle.

Hinduism

While not all Hindu’s practice vegetarianism a substantial portion of the followers of the religion up to 35 percent adhere to a vegetarian lifestyle. Those that live as vegetarians believe that idea of nonviolence applies to animals and that by avoiding the slaughter of animals they will not bring bad karma upon their family. The influence of vegetarianism on the Hindu religion came from its predecessor Brahmanism in which violence against animals was strictly controlled with its scriptures only allowing the slaughter of animals for religious sacrifice.

In Addition, the Brahmanism views are also expressed in the Hindu law book the Dharma??stra, which denounced the slaughter of animals and the consumption of meat unless it was performed in a proper religious sacrifice performed by priests. Today, the slaughter of animals based on these principles has almost come to an end.

Other Religions

Other major religions throughout the world to include Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have followers that adhere to a vegetarian diet, but the religions do not have a strict policy concerning the consumption of animals. However, when it comes to Judaism and Islam followers of these religions will not consume meat unless it has been slaughtered through the traditional halal method for Muslims and kosher method for followers of Judaism. While both of these religions allow their followers to eat meat that has been prepared in the proper manner they both avoid eating pork, and meat from carnivorous animals to include birds of prey.

Chapter 2

Types of Vegetarians

If you are looking to join the vegetarian lifestyle, there are different options from which you can choose. These different options give you the opportunity to ease your way into the scene without having to jump into the deep end with no life vest. You no longer have to make the decision to swear off meat all together to be a vegetarian and you can choose to be one of the four types.

Strict Vegetarian/Vegan

Strict vegetarians are also known as vegans and as their name implies, they do not eat any products that derive from animals, to include cheese, eggs, and cream. Vegans will replace the nutrients that are found in food that comes from animals with different foodstuffs. For example, vegans use tofu to replace meat that may be found in a dish along with the use of plant cream and plant milk. The nutrients that humans get from eggs and cheeses are replaced with the substitution of applesauce and certain ground seeds like flax.

Strict vegetarians also have their own variations of foods that meat eaters consume. If you take the time to visit your local health food store, you will have no problem finding vegetarian sausage, vegetarian burgers, vegetarian chicken nuggets, and vegetarian bacon. To replace what nutrition that is lost by not eating meat nutritionists recommend that vegans have a minimum of three servings a day of vegetables that include the dark green and leafy vegetables such as spinach and broccoli, along with vegetables like carrots.

To further their nutritional intake nutritionists recommend that strict vegetarians also consume at least five servings a day of whole grains like pasta, bread, and rice. To comply with nutritionist guidelines strict vegetarians should also have three servings of fruit and at least two servings of beans, peas, or lentils.