The World of Sports Nutrition

Advancements in medicine and an increase in capitalism in the world as well as other factors all contributed to the development of the field of sports nutrition.As scientists learned more and more about our bodies and the optimum level of strength and physical fitness they can harbor, businessmen jumped the gun and manufactured products and services that actually help athletes meet these optimum levels. The media joined in the ruckus and published materials leading to the promotion of both the scientific and the commercial side of the field.Sports nutrition has been changing through the years around the world. It’s not just that the topics are different – the emphasis and approach have also changed.Peak Performance, a sports magazine carried an article on dehydration in runners on October 1990, its maiden issue. This article compared the benefits of plain water with those of dilute glucose solutions, which are more isotonic and therefore absorbed more rapidly.Today, go into almost any supermarket, convenience stores and even school cafeterias and you’ll find a ready supply of sports drinks aimed at maintaining hydration just like glucose solutions.The difference is that by using soluble long-chain glucose polymers instead of simple glucose, it’s now possible to create an isotonic drink that hydrates and also supplies significant amounts of carbohydrate to working muscles. And, the good thing is, sports drinks also taste better.More than 10 years ago, it was made public that muscle damage brought about by free-radicals may be reduced by having supplements of antioxidant vitamins A; C and E. Years after, antioxidant supplementation became a norm in the world of sports nutrition.Now, researchers are also beginning to understand that muscle damage is a more complex subject. It is difficult to assess free radical damage in athletes and it has been found out those large amounts of antioxidant nutrients may actually cause cellular damage and impair performance.The carb loading technique has been widely used over the years by athletes all over the world. A carbohydrate-rich diet is important in maintaining muscle glycogen stores thus ensuring high endurance levels.However, in the 1990′s it became clear that the glycemic index and release rate of different carbohydrates had important influence on when they should best be consumed in relation to physical activity.The relationship of carbohydrates and proteins were also discovered namely that carbohydrates promote protein-sparing in the body. It was also discovered recently that consuming carbohydrates before and during prolonged bouts of strenuous exercise can help protect the immune system.One of the most exciting recent developments in sports nutrition has been the rise of creatine supplementation. The use of creatine is now very common. Creatine renews the muscles essential energy source, ATP or adenosine triphosphate. Increased levels in muscles optimizes energy turnover meaning you’ll more energy for high power exercise and faster recovery during and after workouts. Creatine also increases the athlete’s maximum effort, delays fatigue and therefore prolongs endurance.New wisdom and therefore new products have definitely enabled athletes to fuel themselves better, work harder, train longer and recover more rapidly. However, as in any kind of innovation there will always be downsides.Nutritional supplements available to most athletes in the 80′s were very straightforward. Some athletes took drugs but the boundaries between nutritional supplements and drugs clear. Today, the race to find new formulas to boost performance has resulted to the availability of sports nutrition supplements which do not really occur naturally. The result is that the distinction between a nutrient and a performance-enhancing substance has become increasingly blurred.Some of these supplements contain ingredients that can cause athletes to violate the rules and regulations governing their sport because of unintentional contamination by other, ‘exotic’, substances present in the supplement manufacturing environment.More developments will be created in the world of sports nutrition and these will definitely spawn ethical questions. “Nutrigenomics”-the relationship between genetics and nutrition-will be more researched upon.As scientists become more skilled at discovering the processes of our genes, it will be possible that rather than adopting a general approach for sports nutrition, athletes around the world will be genetically tested to help them determine precise individual requirements for optimum health.The next years will predictably be more exciting for the world of sports nutrition.

Finance, Credit, Investments – Economical Categories

Scientific works in the theories of finances and credit, according to the specification of the research object, are characterized to be many-sided and many-leveled.

The definition of totality of the economical relations formed in the process of formation, distribution and usage of finances, as money sources is widely spread. For example, in “the general theory of finances” there are two definitions of finances:

1) “…Finances reflect economical relations, formation of the funds of money sources, in the process of distribution and redistribution of national receipts according to the distribution and usage”. This definition is given relatively to the conditions of Capitalism, when cash-commodity relations gain universal character;

2) “Finances represent the formation of centralized ad decentralized money sources, economical relations relatively with the distribution and usage, which serve for fulfillment of the state functions and obligations and also provision of the conditions of the widened further production”. This definition is brought without showing the environment of its action. We share partly such explanation of finances and think expedient to make some specification.

First, finances overcome the bounds of distribution and redistribution service of the national income, though it is a basic foundation of finances. Also, formation and usage of the depreciation fund which is the part of financial domain, belongs not to the distribution and redistribution of the national income (of newly formed value during a year), but to the distribution of already developed value.

This latest first appears to be a part of value of main industrial funds, later it is moved to the cost price of a ready product (that is to the value too) and after its realization, and it is set the depression fund. Its source is taken into account before hand as a depression kind in the consistence of the ready products cost price.

Second, main goal of finances is much wider then “fulfillment of the state functions and obligations and provision of conditions for the widened further production”. Finances exist on the state level and also on the manufactures and branches’ level too, and in such conditions, when the most part of the manufactures are not state.

V. M. Rodionova has a different position about this subject: “real formation of the financial resources begins on the stage of distribution, when the value is realized and concrete economical forms of the realized value are separated from the consistence of the profit”. V. M. Rodionova makes an accent of finances, as distributing relations, when D. S. Moliakov underlines industrial foundation of finances. Though both of them give quite substantiate discussion of finances, as a system of formation, distribution and usage of the funds of money sources, that comes out of the following definition of the finances: “financial cash relations, which forms in the process of distribution and redistribution of the partial value of the national wealth and total social product, is related with the subjects of the economy and formation and usage of the state cash incomes and savings in the widened further production, in the material stimulation of the workers for satisfaction of the society social and other requests”.

In the manuals of the political economy we meet with the following definitions of finances:
“Finances of the socialistic state represent economical (cash) relations, with the help of which, in the way of planned distribution of the incomes and savings the funds of money sources of the state and socialistic manufactures are formed for guaranteeing the growth of the production, rising the material and cultural level of the people and for satisfying other general society requests”.
“The system of creation and usage of necessary funds of cash resources for guarantying socialistic widened further production represent exactly the finances of the socialistic society. And the totality of economical relations arisen between state, manufactures and organizations, branches, regions and separate citizen according to the movement of cash funds make financial relations”.
As we’ve seen, definitions of finances made by financiers and political economists do not differ greatly.
In every discussed position there are:

1) expression of essence and phenomenon in the definition of finances;

2) the definition of finances, as the system of the creation and usage of funds of cash sources on the level of phenomenon.

3) Distribution of finances as social product and the value of national income, definition of the distributions planned character, main goals of the economy and economical relations, for servicing of which it is used.

If refuse the preposition “socialistic” in the definition of finances, we may say, that it still keeps actuality. We meet with such traditional definitions of finances, without an adjective “socialistic”, in the modern economical literature. We may give such an elucidation: “finances represent cash resources of production and usage, also cash relations appeared in the process of distributing values of formed economical product and national wealth for formation and further production of the cash incomes and savings of the economical subjects and state, rewarding of the workers and satisfaction of the social requests”. in this elucidation of finances like D. S. Moliakov and V. M. Rodionov’s definitions, following the traditional inheritance, we meet with the widening of the financial foundation. They concern “distribution and redistribution of the value of created economical product, also the partial distribution of the value of national wealth”. This latest is very actual, relatively to the process of privatization and the transition to privacy and is periodically used in practice in different countries, for example, Great Britain and France.

“Finances – are cash sources, financial resources, their creation and movement, distribution and redistribution, usage, also economical relations, which are conditioned by intercalculations between the economical subjects, movement of cash sources, money circulation and usage”.
“Finances are the system of economical relations, which are connected with firm creation, distribution and usage of financial resources”.

We meet with absolutely innovational definitions of finances in Z. Body and R. Merton’s basis manuals. “Finance – it is the science about how the people lead spending `the deficit cash resources and incomes in the definite period of time. The financial decisions are characterized by the expenses and incomes which are 1) separated in time, and 2) as a rule, it is impossible to take them into account beforehand neither by those who get decisions nor any other person” . “Financial theory consists of numbers of the conceptions… which learns systematically the subjects of distribution of the cash resources relatively to the time factor; it also considers quantitative models, with the help of which the estimation, putting into practice and realization of the alternative variants of every financial decisions take place” .

These basic conceptions and quantitative models are used at every level of getting financial decisions, but in the latest definition of finances, we meet with the following doctrine of the financial foundation: main function of the finances is in the satisfaction of the people’s requests; the subjects of economical activities of any kind (firms, also state organs of every level) are directed towards fulfilling this basic function.

For the goals of our monograph, it is important to compare well-known definitions about finances, credit and investment, to decide how and how much it is possible to integrate the finances, investments and credit into the one total part.

Some researcher thing that credit is the consisting part of finances, if it is discussed from the position of essence and category. The other, more numerous group proves, that an economical category of credit exists parallel to the economical category of finances, by which it underlines impossibility of the credit’s existence in the consistence of finances.

N. K. Kuchukova underlined the independence of the category of credit and notes that it is only its “characteristic feature the turned movement of the value, which is not related with transmission of the loan opportunities together with the owners’ rights”.

N. D. Barkovski replies that functioning of money created an economical basis for apportioning finances and credit as an independent category and gave rise to the credit and financial relations. He noticed the Gnoseological roots of science in money and credit, as the science about finances has business with the research of such economical relations, which lean upon cash flow and credit.
Let’s discuss the most spread definitions of credit. in the modern publications credit appeared to be “luckier”, then finances. For example, we meet with the following definition of credit in the finance-economical dictionary: “credit is the loan in the form of cash and commodity with the conditions of returning, usually, by paying percent. Credit represents a form of movement of the loan capital and expresses economical relations between the creditor and borrower”.

This is the traditional definition of credit. In the earlier dictionary of the economy we read: “credit is the system of economical relations, which is formed while the transmission of cash and material means into the temporal usage, as a rule under the conditions of returning and paying percent”.
In the manual of the political economy published under reduction of V. A. Medvedev the following definition is given: “credit, as an economical category, expresses the created relations between the society, labour collective and workers during formation and usage of the loan funds, under the terms of paying present and returning, during transmission of sources for the temporal usage and accumulation”.

Credit is discussed in the following way in the earlier education-methodological manuals of political economy: “credit is the system of money relations, which is created in the process of using and mobilization of temporarily free cash means of the state budget, unions, manufactures, organizations and population. Credit has an objective character. It is used for providing widened further production of the state and other needs. Credit differs from finances by the returning character, while financing of manufactures and organizations by the state is fulfilled without this condition”.

We meet with the following definition if “the course of economy”: “credit is an economical category, which represents relations, while the separate industrial organizations or persons transmit money means to each-other for temporal usage under the conditions of returning. Creation of credit is conditioned by a historical process of fulfilling the economical and money relations, the form of which is the money relation”.

Following scientists give slightly different definitions of credit:
“Credit – is a loan in the form of money or commodity, which is given to the borrower by a creditor under the conditions of returning and paying the percentage rate by the borrower”.
Credit is giving the temporally free money sources or commodity as a debt for the defined terms by the price of fixed percentage. Thus, a credit is the loan in the form of money or commodity. In the process of this loan’s movement, a definite relations are formed between a creditor (the loan is given by a juridical of physical person, who gives certain cash as a debt) and the debtor.
Combining every definition named above, we come to an idea, that credit is giving money capital of commodity as a debt, for certain terms and material provision under the price of firm percentage rate. It expresses definite economical relations between the participants of the process of capital formation. Necessity of the credit relations is conditioned, from one side, by gathering solid quantity of temporarily free money sources, and from the second side, existence of requests of them.

Though, at the same time we must distinguish two resembling concepts: loan and credit. Loan is characterized by:

o Here, the discussion may touch upon transmission of money and also things form one side (loaner) to another (borrower): a)under the owning of the borrower and, at the same time, b) under the conditions of returning same amount or same quantity and quality of the things;

o The loaning of money may bear no interest;

o Any person may take part in it.
With the difference with loan, credit, which is somehow a private occasion of the loan, represents:

o One side (loaner) gives to the second one (borrower) only money, and _ for temporal usage;

o It may not bear no interest (if the assignment doesn’t foresee something);

o In it creditor is not any person, but a credit organization (at the first place, banks).
So, a credit is the bank credit. To our mind, it is not correct to use “credit” and “loan” as the synonyms.
Banking crediting is the union of relations between bank (as a creditor) and its borrower. These relations touch upon:

a) Giving a certain amount of money to the borrower for definite purpose (though, we meet with the so-called free credits, aims and objects of crediting are not appointed in the assignment);

b) Its opportune returning;

c) Getting percentage rate from the borrower for using the sources under his/her disposal.
The essential foundation of the credit essence and its important element is existence of trust between the two sides (in Latin “credo”, from which comes the word “credit”, means “trust”).
From the position of circulation of money forms (in the abstraction, historical process of formation economical relations and social budget and banking systems expressed by them) comparing different definitions of finances and credit, the paradox conclusion appears: credit is the private occasion of finances. And truly, from the position of movement of the money forms, finances represent the process of formation and usage of the funds of cash means. Very often such movements are fulfilled without returning, but sometimes, it is possible to give loans from the budget for the investment projects of other needs. Also, when a manufacture or corporations use their cash funds and we mean the finances of industrial subject, such usage may be realized as inside the manufacture or corporation (there is no subject about returning or not returning of the usage), so gratis under conditions of returning. This latest is called commercial form because of transmitting the sources to others, but even in this occasion, it is the element of financial system of the manufacture and corporation.

From the point of cash means movement, main character of credit is the process of formation and usage of the funds of cash means under the conditions of returning and, as a rule, taking the value-percentage. If gating the credit value doesn’t take place (even in the exceptional occasions), according to the movement form, credit becomes a private occasion of finances, as from the net financial funds (consequently from the state budget) the loans which bear no interests may be used. If gating credit value takes place, by the appearance form, credit is discussed to be financial modification.

From the historical point of view, finances (especially in the sort of the state budget) and credit (beginning with usury, later commercial and banking) were developing differently for considering credit to be the part of finances. Though, from the genetic-historical point of view, previous loaners, before giving loan, needed gathering the permanent capital not returning, that is the net financial foundation. The banks analogously needed concentration of the important own capital for influxing the consumers’ means and for getting higher percentage rate under the conditions of returning. Herewith, exactly on the financial basis, in the sort of financial fund (which later partially becomes loan fund) part of the bank capital appears to be the reservation (insurance) part of the fund, which by nature is financial and not loan. So notwithstanding the essential distinctions between finances and credit form the genetic-historical point of view, credit appears to be formed from finances and represent their modification.

From the essential position of expressing economical relations of finances and credit, we meet with cardinal distinctions between these two categories. Which mostly expressed by the distinction of the movement forms notwithstanding they are returnable or not. Finances express relations in the aspects of distribution and redistribution of social product and part of the national wealth. Credit expresses distribution of the appropriate value only in the section of percentage given for loan, while according to the loan itself, a only a temporal distribution of money sources takes place.
Herewith, there is a lot of common between the finances and credit as from the essential point of view, so according to the form of movement. At the same time, there is a significant distinction between finances and credit as in the essence, so in the form too. According to this, there must be a kind of generally economical category, which will consider finances and credit as a total unity, and in the bounds of this category itself, the separation of the specific essence of the finances and credit would take place.

Funding of the cash means is common to the researched economical categories. It takes place in any separate system of finances and credit, which have been touched upon during the analyses of defining finances and credit. Word combination “funding of the cash sources (fund formation)” reflects and defines exactly essence and form of economical category of more general character, those of finances and credit categories. Though in the in economical texts and practice, it is very uncomfortable to use a termini, which consists of three words. Also, “unloading” with an information hardens greatly its influxing into the circulation even in the conditions of its strict substantiation and thoroughness.
In the discussing context we consider:

1) wide and narrow understanding of economical category of the finances;

2) discussing finances in narrow understanding under general traditional meaning;

3) discussing finances, as funding of the cash means, in wide understanding, which concerns finances – in narrow meaning and credit – in complete meaning.
Termini “funding” and its equivalent “fund formation” are used by us as the purposeful structuring of cash means, which is based on two poles – accumulation of money sources (gathering) and its usage for definite purpose in the way of financing and crediting.
We have established a new termini – “finance-investment sphere” (FIS). Analyses about interrelation of finances and credit made by us give us an opportunity of proving, that in the given termini, the word “financial” is used with the meaning of funding cash sources, its purposeful structuring. In this process we consider at the same time financial, credit and investments’ economical categories.

Let’s sum up middle results of discussing new concept – “finance-investment sphere” and discuss its investment consisting parts.

The concept “investments” was brought into the native economical science from the West. In the Soviet economical science they for a long time used in the place “investments” the termini “capital placement”, which expressed the usage of the industrial factors in the sphere of real industrial activities during realization of capital projects. From one glance, this termini in its concept is identical to the “investments”, consequently it is possible to use them as synonyms. Though the termini “investments” and “investing” have the advantage towards the termini “capital placement” from linguistic and philological points of view, because they are expressed with one word. This is not only economical and comfortable in the process of working with the termini “investment” itself, but also it gives an opportunity of termini formation. More concretely: “investment process”, “investment domain”, “finance-investment sphere” – all these termini are much more acceptable.
Changing native economical termini with foreign ones is purposeful, if it really matters (by keeping parallel usage of the native termini for the inheritance). Though we must not change native economical termini into foreign ones all together, when by ordinal traditional language easy to explain private and narrow concrete processes and elements get their own termini. The “movement” of these termini is approved in the narrow professional bounds, but their “spitting out” into the economical science may turn economical language into the tangled slang.

Let’s discuss termini – “investment” and “capital placement’s” usage in the economical literature.
Investments are placement of funds into the main and circulation capital for the purpose of getting profit. “Investments in material assets – are the placements of funds into the mobile and real estate (land, buildings, furniture and so on). Investments in financial assets are the placements of funds into the securities bank accounts and other financial instruments”.

We don’t meet with the termini “investments” in the earlier economical dictionary, but we meet the combined termini “investment policy” – the union of the industrial decisions, which guarantee main directions of the capital investments, the activities of their concentration in the determinant suburbs, on which the reaching of planned rates of development of the society production is depended, balancing and effectiveness, getting more and more production and profit of the national income for every lost Ruble”. For today, in the most actual definitions, the capital investments are bounded only by financial means, when not only financial, but also the investment of natural, material-technical and informational resources takes place. Labour resources take an actual place in the investment process. They themselves fulfill this or that investment process.

A positive side of the discussed definitions is that they connect investment policy and capital placements (investments):

- economical development according to the key directions to the concentration;

- providing high rates of economical growth;

- raising an economical effectiveness, which is expressed:

a) by growing the throw off of the production and national income for every lost Ruble;

b) by fulfilling the branch structure of the investments;

c) by improving their technological structure;

d) by optimization of their further production structure.

Compared with such definition of the investments (capital placement) the definition of investments in the dictionary attaching the “Economics” seems to be unimproved: “investments – the expenses of gathering production and industrial means and increasing material reserve”. In this definition current expenses (production expenses) are mixed with the investment (capital) expense. Also, not the investment expenses but (though the investments are followed by the appropriate expenses) exactly advancing. It differs from the expenses by that the means (means) are put by returning the advanced values, also, under the conditions of growth, to which the concept-advanced capital is corresponding. the advancing may be realized in the money, natural-material and informational forms.

Except the termini “investments”, there are two more termini related with the investment. They are shown below.

“Human capital investment” – any activity provided for rising the workers labour productivity (in the way of growing their qualification and developing their abilities); at the expenses of improving the workers’ education, health and raising the mobility of the working forces”. It is very useful to use the mentioned termini, though it needs one correction: the human capital investments do not concern only workers, but also the servants, representatives of every kind of labour.
“Investment commodity, capital goods – a capital.”

In the official manuals of political economy of the reformation time the capital investments are discussed as “expenses for creating new main funds and widening, reconstruction and renewing the active ones”. In this definition the investments (capital placements) during separation of the forms (types) of further production of the main funds are bounded only by main funds (without increases of the circulation funds and insurance reserves):

a) creating new ones;

b) widening;

c) reconstruction;

d) renewing.

Also, the concept of the industrial gathering appears, at the expenses of widening of basic, circulation funds and also insurance reserves takes place”.

You’ll meet below the definitions of investments from “the course of economy”: the investments are called “placements of fund into the basic capital (basic means of production), reserves, also other economical objects and processes, which request long-termed influxing of material and cash means. “According to the division of capital into physical and money forms, the investments too must be divided into material and cash investments”.

They apportion investment commodity, to which belong industrial and nonindustrial building objects, vehicles purposed for changing or widened technical park and the furniture, increasing reserves and others.

“They call the total investments of production an investment product, which is directed towards keeping and increasing the basic capital (basic means) and reserve. Total investments consist of two parts. One of them is called the depreciation; it represents important investment resources for compensation of renewal till the level of before industrial usage, wearing out and repairing of the basic means. Second consisting part of the total investments is represented by net investments – capital investments for the purpose of increasing basic means”. Depreciation is not a compensation resource of wearing the basic funds out, but it is the purposeful financial source of such resources.
Human capital investment is “a specific kind of investments, mostly in education and health protection”.

“Real investments are the investments in the economical branches and also, they are kinds of economical activities, which provide influxing the increases of real capital, that is increasing material values of the industrial means”. We can agree with such definition with one specification that material and nonmaterial values too belong to the real capital (wealth), consequently science-researching experimental-construction results, various information, education of he workers and others. Such service as organization of the excitable games, also the service of redistribution social wealth from one private person to another (except charity).

“Financial investments represent placement of funds into the shares, obligations, promissory notes, other securities and instruments. Such investments, of course, do not give increases of the real material capital, but they help getting profit, consequently at the expenses of changing the course of the securities in the time of speculation, or distinguishing the course in different places of sell and purchasing”. We share wholly such definition, hence it follows that financial investments (if it is not followed by real investments as a result) do not increase real material wealth and real nonmaterial wealth. According to this context, the expression below is very important: “we must distinguish financial investments, which represent placement of the funds in the ways of selling and purchasing the securities for the purpose of getting profit and financial investments, which become cash and real, moved to real physical capital.”

In the “economical course” quoted before long and short-termed investments are separated. Recognizing the existence of the bounds between them, the authors ascribe short-termed investments to “one month or more” investments. If we get such conditioned criteria, that we can call the investments which overcome the terms of some months, long-termed ones, which is very doubtful and we don’t agree with it. A long-termed character of the fund placement is a significant feature of the investments (short-term doesn’t combine with the concept of investments). Principally, it would be better to point out quick compensative, middle termed compensative and long-termed compensative investments:

- less then 6 months – quick compensative;

- from 6 months up to the year and a half – middle termed compensative;

- more then the year and a half – long termed compensative.

We stopped at the definition of the investments in the capital work “economical course” for the special purpose, as, in it the author tried to discuss the concept of investments systemically and quite completely, herewith the book is published just now.

We’ll return to the discussion the definition economical category of “investments” in different publications in the following chapter. The definitions given here are quite enough for having a notion of the level of lighting up the given category in the economical literature.
What conclusions may be made according the definition of the mentioned economical category in the published works, except the made notions and specifications?

There is quite deeply, concretely and thoroughly defined the concept of “investments”, different definitions in the economical literature; but mostly in every works about the investments discussed by us until now, there is not opened the essence of investments as an economical category. In every monograph , even if it has a title investment, as an economical category , there is given only the definition, concept of investments. But, as the Academician Vasil Chantladze explains, “a concept is a discussion, which proves something about the distinguishing feature of the researched object. A concept out of much essential characteristic features represents only one, and essential in it is only – definition”.

But the categories are much wider; it is “a key, the most fundamental concept of every science”. Economical categories theoretically represent real, objectively existed productive relations. A category is the defining of occasions of existed characters, connections, relations of the objective world. Generally, any educational process is fulfilled by the categories, which give opportunities for dividing the processes and occasions semantically, for expressing the definitions of a subject and realize their specific peculiarities and economical relations of a material world.
Our goal is exactly to substantiate investments – as an economical category and also, as a financial category in the narrow understanding.

Here we apply for another manual thesis made by the academician Vasil Chantladze: “every financial relation is an economical one and every financial category is and economical one, but not every economical relation and economical category is financial relation and financial category”.
In the process of defining the investments, it is important to take in mind the sides of resources, expenses and incomes, because investment, from one side, is the result of the manufacture’s activity, and, from another one, – a part of income, which, in this case, is not used for usage.
Another occasion: it is advisable to discuss investments in two aspects: as a category of reserve and flow, which will reflect exactly the connection between “placement of funds” and “investments”.

Introduction to Online Advertising

Our next lesson covers the main items for online advertising. Advertising is probably the most important promotion tool for big brick-and-mortar companies. However, with a SEM businesses, advertising is only a supporting factor. The problem is that the majority of SEM businesses lack the scale to be able to effectively contact large numbers of prospects and clients. Furthermore, there aren’t many places on the Web where prospective clients come in flocks. Therefore, advertising is largely PPC-oriented.Actually, online advertising is advertising on the Internet. This particular form of advertising is a source of revenue for an increasing number of websites and companies.A significant number of firms, from small businesses to multinational corporations, incorporate online advertising into their marketing strategy. Online advertisements typically involve at least two separate firms: the advertiser or agency which purchases or sponsors the advertisement and the publisher or network which distributes the ad for display. Because of the close relationship between technical innovation and online advertising, many firms specialize in both. For example, most search engines couple their search service with an advertising program, exploiting the benefits of keyword-based search technology by including ads in search results.Let’s look closer on the most popular online advertising form as traditional banner. PPC advertising form will be explained in details in 8 lessons of our next Step.Traditional Banner
A Web banner or banner ad is a widely used form of advertising on the Internet. This kind of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a Web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking them to the advertiser’s website.Generally the advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, JPEG, PNG), JavaScript program or multimedia object employing technologies such as Java, Shockwave or Flash, and often employing animation or sound to maximize presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape. Banners are usually placed on Web pages that have interesting content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece.The Web banner is displayed when a Web page that references the banner is loaded into a Web browser. This event is known as an “impression”. When the viewer clicks on the banner, the viewer is directed to the website advertised in the banner. This event is known as a “click-through”. Many banner ads work on a click-through payback system.At the base of a click-through system are mathematical calculations of the number of users (users clicking on an ad) divided by impression number. We remember that the term impression means the number of times the ad was delivered. For example, if your banner ad was delivered 100 times (impressions delivered) and 1 person clicked on it (clicks recorded), then the resulting CTR would be 1%.It should be noted that banner ad click-through rates have fallen over time, often measuring significantly less than 1% and choice of an appropriate advertising site with high affinity is very important crucial factor in this situation. Personalized ads, unusual formats, and more obtrusive ads typically have higher click-through rates than standard banner ads.When the advertiser scans their log files and detects that a Web user has visited the advertiser’s site from the content site by clicking on the banner ad, the advertiser sends the content provider a small amount of money (usually around five to ten US cents). This payback system is often how the content provider is able to pay for the Internet access to supply the content in the first place.Nine Common Banner Ad Mistakes to Avoid
Banner advertising expert Rob Frankel advises e-marketers to avoid the following mistakes when creating their banner ads:
Overloaded. Too many colors. Too slow to load. Too hard to read. Nobody wants to grow old waiting for your banner ad to load. Frankel advises designing banner ads that will load and view easily with last year’s technology. “Personally, I design pages for people running no more than Netscape 2.0 on the equivalent of a 486 running at 66 MHz and 256 colors,” says Frankel. “That means your art should still be no deeper than eight bits, unless you’re a true minimalist and can bring it in at no more than four.”
Unattractive. People like good-looking stuff. What works for Cindy Crawford can work for you, too. So if you’re not a digital Da Vinci, find someone who is and pay him or her a few bucks to make your banner look great.
Too many bells and whistles. Just because technology offers you bells and whistles doesn’t mean you have to use every one of them. Chances are that the average Web surfer has been through several sites before he or she gets to your banner. Give the reader a break. Don’t overdo motion, movement, or message changes. And allow some time to digest what you’re displaying.
Illiteracy and illegibility. These are the ads that make you scrunch up your face and twist your head trying to make some sense out of the illegible scrawls that some knucklehead thinks are cool. But prospects don’t care how cool you think it looks. If they can’t read it, you’ve lost any chance of their clicking on it.
Missing link. Your banner looks great but isn’t linked to anything. That’s a mistake that anyone should be able to detect and prevent with a simple check.
Link errors. Your banner looks great. The link works… directly to a 404 message (meaning the requested Web page was not found). Maybe this one isn’t your fault. Maybe your webmaster inadvertently forgot to tell you he or she switched servers. But even if it was the webmaster’s fault, who do you think will catch the blame? Keep checking those banner links every few days.
Weak message. The same things that make good ads make good banners. Unfortunately, the same things that make bad ads make horrible banners. If you don’t know how to write and design a clever, compelling message, hire someone who does. Nothing turns off poten­tial prospects more than a really stupid attempt at being clever, an offense usually committed with the aid of a bad pun. Remember that your ad is a representative of you, containing a smattering of your personality and ability. If it looks dopey to a viewer, guess what they’re going to think about you? It’s better to be clear than clever.
Confusing message. Your banner looks pretty, but nobody understands what the heck you’re talking about. This is the number-one mistake made by do-it-yourselfers.
Boring banners. One common mistake is that your banner doesn’t compel your recipients to respond within a certain time frame. Without a deadline, there is no immediacy to act, which means they scroll away until they forget it.
Web banners function the same way as traditional advertisements are intended to function: notifying consumers of the product or service and presenting reasons why the consumer should choose the product in question, although Web banners differ in that the results for advertisement campaigns may be monitored real-time and may be targeted to the viewer’s interests.The evidence shows that Web banner ads are restricted by high cost and limited physical banner area. Let’s look at the Marketplace section of SearchEngineWatch.com:Out of 10 advertisers only 3 are in the SEM services business. These companies – BruceClay, KeywordRanking and MoreVisibility – are the largest players in the industry; they have enough wherewithal to run these ads and enough resources to satisfy a large flow of traffic.Pay per click advertising
Pay per click or PPC advertising is an arrangement in which webmasters (operators of websites), acting as publishers, display clickable links from advertisers, in exchange for a charge per click. As this industry evolved, a number of advertising networks developed which acted as middlemen between these two groups (publishers and advertisers). Each time a (believed to be) valid Web user clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays the advertising network, who in turn pays the publisher a share of this money. This revenue sharing system is seen as an incentive for click fraud.Though many companies offer pay per click system as one of their services. Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) and MSN AdCenter are top players in this field.As far as PPC advertising is the first advertising option for any new on-line businesses it became one of the dominant and widely used marketing tools.What you should remember:
A Web banner is displayed when a Web page that references the banner is loaded into a Web browser. This event is known as an “impression”. When the viewer clicks on the banner, the viewer is directed to the website advertised in the banner. This event is known as a “click-through”.
Banners should be placed on Web pages that have interesting content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece.