My Top 6 Web Site Marketing Strategies

By Herman Drost

If you don't create a successful strategy for marketing your web site, you can't build a profitable online business. It's therefore imperative to drive thousands of visitors to your web site, then convert them to paying customers. How do you accomplish this?

Use several marketing strategies
Don't put all your eggs into one basket by only employing one marketing strategy. You could see evidence of this during the latest Google update in which many commercial web sites which once had top rankings, dropped out of existence, thus instantly losing sales.

By creating more than one strategy to market your web site, you can soon see which one works the best by attracting the most visitors.

Market with consistency

Set up a clear daily, weekly, monthly and yearly marketing plan for your web site and stick to it. It is the lifeblood of your business.

Test marketing

Continually test all your web site marketing strategies to see which one works the best. Eliminate those that are not profitable.

6 successful marketing strategies:

Search engine optimization

Here are the locations where you should include your most important keywords or keyword phrases:

1. Meta tags (invisible)

Title tag

Description tag

Keyword tag

Alt tag

2. Page content (visible) - Weave your best keywords throughout the content of your pages. Focus on the first 250 words on your page and only use one to three keyword phrases per page of content. Include keywords in your H1 tag (main title) and H2, H3 tags (subheadings) as well as the hyperlinks in your site or and in outgoing links.

Search engines and directories

3. Submit to major search engines - Google is currently the main search engine to get listed in. If you get listed there, you will also get listed in AOL, Netscape, and Yahoo and it's still free. This may change in the near future as the competition heats up. Other free listings also include directories such as ODP. Do a search on Google to seek out your niche directories ie for sunglasses, look for sunglass directories.

Here are the other search engines to submit to:

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156221

4. Pay per click (PPC) search engines - if you wish to generate traffic to your web site immediately, set up a Google AdWords or Overture campaign.

http://payperclicksearchengines.com

Email Marketing

5. Create a newsletter - most folks don't buy from you immediately but need to be contacted several times to put them in the buying mood. Place a subscription box on every page of your web site. Send out your newsletter every two weeks to keep in touch with your subscribers. Be sure to include original content (not rehashed content) along with new products you wish to introduce to them.

6. Email Course or tutorial - set up an autoresponder that will deliver quality information over a period of seven days. This means you have multiple chances of contacting your visitor and promote your product or service at the same time.

Herman Drost is the author of the popular ebook:
101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site

Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles.htm

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Herman_Drost

Some Easy Ways To Make Money Online

By Gary Kidd

In this article, I am going to show you some easy ways to make money online. The Internet is now allowing ordinary people to make a living at home and with a little effort on your part, following these simple tips will help you create an income from the comfort of your home.

Have or create your own product giving information to people on the subject they are searching for. People use the Internet to search for information. Find a market that has a lot of people searching for information and create a product around that. Having your own product will give you a much higher chance of making money online as every sale gives you huge profit margins. Try to make at least one product and that will help you on your way to riches online.

Selling other people's products is another great way to make money online, and the only downside is that you do not get 100% of the profits for each sale. However, this does save you the time of creating your own product and can help generate an income quickly which in turn gives you more time to work on producing your own products. Affiliate Marketing will allow you to do this and with thousands of products available finding one to suit your marketplace should not be hard.

Writing reviews of the product is best as this helps people to make a purchasing decision and if they see someone else has benefited from the product, they are more likely to buy it themselves.

Creating a website and sell advertising space on it is another great way to make money. The most popular way for this is to use Google AdSense. These small ads appear on your site and are always relevant to the content you have published there. Whenever someone clicks on a Google Adsense Ad, you will earn a small commission from that ad on your site. Of course, you will need a lot of traffic to make big money using Google AdSense so do some research first before going down this route.

If you have your own product, or are selling products from an Affiliate program, then using other people's mailing lists will help you to make money. Some call it Join Ventures while I prefer to call it "UOPML". "Using Other People's Making Lists."

There are two ways to do this. One is to write and ask if you can pay for an advertisement to their list, or the other is to write and offer them a commission for promoting your product to their list. You will need to have an affiliate program in place to do the latter of course, but in time as your business grows, you will begin to understand how this works a lot more.

Until you have an Affiliate program in place for your product, contact people and pay for advertising to their list. Do some research first on the people and maybe even subscribe to their list to see how they market. If you like the content and form trust for this person, it is likely others are doing the same.

If you find the right people to advertise your products for you, you can generate a lot of traffic to your website very quickly and this in turn can lead to huge profits fast.

Any of the techniques above will help you to make money online, but unless you put effort into this you will not make any money. Take the time to research and then take action.

Gary J Kidd is a successful online entrepreneur. He spends most of his time helping people start their own home based businesses and has helped many people quit their jobs and work from home full time. Visit his Blog at: http://www.gjkgroup.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Kidd

Online Marketing - Basic Tips

By Christopher Banaag

These days, the Internet has steadily dominated the life and lifestyle of all kinds of global customers and demographics. One must make use of the vast, untapped potential of the Internet as a business development and marketing channel, with the goal of converting visitors to buyers. Online marketing, also known as web marketing, search engine marketing, SEO or Internet marketing, is vital in today's Internet savvy world and is an essential strategy for any successful business. It's two primary goals are advertising and selling or dispensing of products and/or services through the Internet, thus it is a rather highly competitive field and the strategy demands a thorough understanding of Internet marketing.

Online marketing can help assist you in your endeavor to establish your presence in the virtual world. If you are unsure about your marketing strategies, it doesn't hurt to get some consultation first from the people who have intimate knowledge of search engine optimization, Internet marketing and public relations with proven track record in marketing experience. If you do not have the right resources and expertise, your business will be left lagging behind. Services exist whether you're looking for a brand new presence on the web or upgrade to become a more effective web site.

One which will be based upon your current business model and organizational values in such a way that your astute planning gels with your web marketing goals. It would not only give you a strong web presence, but will also create immense brand value for you, so that you can stand out and be visible from among your competitors. Be clear though in how customers should contact you and always give your website address.

online marketing does not simply mean 'building a website' or 'promoting a website'. Somewhere behind that website is a real organization with real goals. online marketing employs different techniques compared to those of traditional marketing. It is the process of growing and promoting an organization using online media. As with any product or service, however, not all online marketing services are created equal. Simply put, having a list of marketing tactics that have worked for others may just not be enough. The tactics that will help you reach your goals are completely different than the tactics that are right for another website because each website is unique.

Creating visibility on the search engines and high quality consumer online experience for this type of business is critical to help you reach your marketing goals. It is a fact that consumers are 12 times more likely to purchase your products or services after finding your website through a search engine than through all other online marketing programs combined. It is therefore important to optimize the content of the article of the products or services which you are selling in order for you to entice prospective clients. Always remember to focus on benefits, not just features. Features are only a means to an end.

Christopher D. Banaag has been writing articles since high school
Some of his works can be seen at http://stamperding.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Banaag

Look at Me. Now CLICK.

Hey, the best offer in the world won't get results if no one looks at it. So Bronto's Kimberly Snyder recommends four steps to make your email message an irresistible call to action the moment a customer sees it. Look at these tips:

1. Use a consistent "from" name. As we sift through our email, we scan for names we recognize. So, think of your "from" name as your corporate logo in an inbox: if you constantly change or tweak it, you won't stand out, and you run the risk of losing customers' confidence—or of simply annoying them.

2. Craft a compelling subject line. "The key is to create a short, clear and enticing call to action that speaks to your consumer," says Snyder. A good one intrigues a recipient so much, she wants to know more.

3. Take advantage of a pre-header. Many recipients use preview panes to view their email, so use text links viewable with any ISP to extend the subject line's call to action, or to include a snappy second offer to intrigue them even more.

4. Think smart with your preview pane. Since many ISPs block html images in preview panes, design your message with that in mind. "Grab your customers' attention with an optimal design that seamlessly integrates your company's logo, navigation bar and promotion, whether images are on or off," she advises. Finally, look to make sure the preview pane is rendering them as text only.

The Po!nt: First impressions really matter here. "Consumers want to be moved, motivated and enticed by smart email marketing," says Snyder. "It either begins or ends in the inbox."

Source: MarketingProfs.

How to Avoid Ticking Off the (Ever-Sensitive) Blogosphere

Ever worry about what happens when you annoy the million-headed monster known as the blogosphere? Well, worry no more. After hosting a lively panel at this year's SXSW conference with the entertaining title "10 Easy Ways to Piss Off a Blogger," Rohit Bhargava posted a quick summation of the freewheeling discussion at his Influential Marketing Blog. Here are a few critical tips on how to avoid the ire of the Web's many online commentators:

Make it easy for a blogger to get off your email list. It's bad enough if you include bloggers on mass broadcasts without first getting their consent; but the best way to guarantee they never give you favorable coverage is to compound their frustration with a complicated (or nonexistent) unsubscribe process.

Don't begin the relationship by asking for a favor. Never include a personal request with your first "cold call" outreach. Establish a rapport, and then begin thinking about what a blogger can do for you.

Maintain reasonable expectations. Most successful bloggers have demanding day jobs and/or hectic schedules. So cut them some slack if they're slow responding to a query, or take more than a few hours to post a new item.

The Po!nt: When it comes to building relationships with bloggers, follow the golden rule: treat them as you would like to be treated.

Source: Influential Marketing Blog.

Best 3 SEO Tips of 2008

By Scott Jason

Each year I spend the first three months looking for the best and most innovative SEO tips of the previous year's end. This year I have what I believe to be the best 3 SEO tips in a decade!

SEO Tip #1: Make Google Alerts Your Personal Online Spy

Google Alerts is a great way to let the world's biggest search engine be your personal online investigator. This takes search engine optimization insider info to a whole new level. Here's an excerpt straight from Google....

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic."

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

-monitoring a developing news story
-keeping current on a competitor or industry
-getting the latest on a celebrity or event
-keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

" As you probably guessed, it's the second one we care about most, "keeping current on a competitor or industry."

Here's how it works... Each time Google finds a reference to the query or topic you request you will be sent an email with the details. This is like having an online agent to make sure competitors are not using your protected keywords (trademarked names, company names, etc.) It's also an instant identifier to know when your site or product is mentioned in a news story or even when a topic is hot so you can take advantage of the situation. It's the easiest way in the world to stop competitors' dirty tricks and identify trends that you can take instant advantage of.

It's fast, free and works every minute of every day. Let Google Alerts do your most time consuming legwork while you reap the rewards!

SEO Tip #2: Optimize Your 404 Page and Always Be Found

"Error 404: Page Not Found" is a blessing that most Webmasters curse. Why? Getting a visitor on any page of your site is fantastic! Don't blow the opportuníty. Not only can you make your "404" page a valuable sales tool, you can use the following search engine optimization techniques to attract customers in droves.

A.) Use your main keyword in your title, add a "pipe" (usually above the Enter key) and then use your secondary keyword. Here's an example for an SEO site "SEO | Search Engine Optimization Tips"

B.) Add some keyword rich content using one to two keywords for the page. If you have less than 250 words on the page, just use one keyword and use it no more than three times total. Bold the first use and italicize the second or third use. Keep in mind this is an "inactive" page so simply tell the visitor what your site is about and whet their appetite with a good description. Something like this works well... "Thank you for visiting SEO (bold) Group, Inc. We're sorry you seem to have found a missing page but rest assured, if you are looking for the world's best search engine optimization tips (bold or italic), you are at the right place..." This will go on for a couple paragraphs or as long as you'd like then end it with something to the effect of "Please Clíck Here (link) to visit our site map or click any link to the left."

C.) Add your site's standard navigation system (bar, column, etc.) as mentioned above.

D.) Make the look and feel of the customized 404 page match your main site as closely as possible with a template, matched palette, cascading style sheets, etc.

E.) Create a link to the site map page if available, and make the link easy to find. You want your visitor off the 404 page and into your main content as quickly as possible.

Setting up a custom 404 page link usually takes less than five minutes on most major Web hosting companies like Godaddy.com. But whatever it takes, it's worth the effort.

SEO Tip #3: Get (Even More) Serious About Linking

I saved the most important for last. If you want to do well on any search engine, especially Google, linking is THE single MOST important thing you can do. It's that simple.

Here are the five things you MUST do to make your site #1 on Google:

A.) Find the highest page rank sites linking to your site AND your competitors' sites.

B.) Run monthly link campaigns and snatch up the best of the above identified Web sites.

C.) Run regular checks on what pages are still linking back to your site. Also make sure they did not move you from a high page rank page to a lower one (don't get cheated!)

D.) Eliminate any penalized sites you link to; ASAP!

E.) Check your search engine ranking AND your competitor's for each of your keywords every week. Do this for Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista at the minimum.

Inside Tip: Keeping up can be a lot of work, and is extremely important, so a lot of SEO Consultants (myself included) use SEO Elite to do all the most difficult and time consuming work.

One last thing to know is that Google was originally a college student's project created for the sole purpose of defining a Web site's value by the sites that link to it. Twelve years later this is still its main job. Linking is EVERYTHING to Google.

These three SEO tips are the best of the best so use them wisely. Best of luck!

About The Author
Scott Jason is a 10 year veteran search engine optimization and copywriting specialist. He has been a guest "expert advice" author for three SEO books including The SEO Answer Book and is the co-founder of BestSEOCopywriting.com .

SEO Copywriting Tips for Google, Yahoo and your Prospects

By Angela Charles

It might not seem logical, but a web site that's well-written for human consumption with a little SEO help usually is also well-received by the robots of search engines like Google and Yahoo.

So, what does "well-written" mean? Here are some tips to good SEO copywriting for Google, Yahoo and site visitors.

SEO Copywriting Tips – How to Write Great Web Site Content

Keyword research: This topic deserves a whole article on its own, but suffice to say that you'll want to base your site content on the keyword terms that you know are most popular among the audience you're trying to reach. There are online tools available that can help you determine the right keywords for your company. Among them are WordTracker and Keyword Discovery.

One topic per page: If your company makes 5 different products, you'll need to devote at least one page per topic.

Details, details: Each topic should be covered in enough detail that the site visitor can determine whether to contact you for more information. From an SEO standpoint, the more detail you provide on each topic, the more easily the search engines will be able to determine the relevance of your site to that keyword.

Kill the sales brochure: Internet users don't appreciate going to your web to find only a sales brochure. Avoid flowery language; it usually signifies a page that's light on content and heavy on sales pitch, which the search engines won't rank well. Good SEO copywriting will focus on objective facts about your company's products and services, with a call-to-action for more information.

Create a content hierarchy: The more detail, the better, but be considerate of your site visitors' time. Good SEO copywriting separates content into multiple pages and creates a hierarchy for your pages with most important information first, least important last. The most important pages you'll want on your navigation bar, with lesser pages linking off those. Make sure you include a site map, though, that lists all your web site's pages.

Keyword density: In order for search engines to be able to rank your pages for a particular keyword, that keyword has to be used on your page. At the same time, the more often you use it, the more relevant the page will seem. ONE CAVEAT: Don't go overboard. Writing should sound natural to the human visitors you're trying to reach. Search engines can penalize you for "overoptimizing" by using the keyword too often (known as keyword stuffing or spamming).

Types of Content to Consider for Your Company Web Site

Part of the SEO copywriting process is project planning. It's important to take the time to consider what information people would want to know about your company. Here are some types of content well received by Internet visitors and search engines:

-Product details, including features/benefits, specifications, data sheets, diagrams, flow-charts, video demonstrations and photos (with alt tags, see below)
-Technical tips, product troubleshooting guides, user manuals
-Customer testimonials, case studies
-Industry definitions
-Product selection guides, comparative information

Advice on Adding PDFs to your Site

Search engines have become more sophisticated in being able to index varying file types. PDFs work fine for information that site visitors might want to print out and keep. But, if you use PDFs, make sure they open in a separate browser. Also, add a link to your home page somewhere on each PDF; otherwise, site visitors that enter your site from a search engine via the PDF won't have navigation to take them to the rest of your site.

Where to Get Ideas for Good SEO Content

Type your top keywords into Google and Yahoo and see what sites and pages come up on the first or second page of results. This will give you a good idea of some of the content that search engines like. More specifically, take a look at:

-Competitor sites
-Industry portal sites
-Industry magazine sites
-Resource sites

See what types of content they provide that your site could emulate (not copy).


Other On-Page SEO Copywriting Tips

Once your content is written, it's time to place it on the page. Here are some additional details you'll need to be concerned with to complete the SEO copywriting process:

Title tags: Make sure each page title tag is unique and complements the content of that page. For instance, if your page is about "blue suede shoes", then your title tag might be "Blue Suede Shoes | ABC Company"

Description tags: Likewise, you'll want each page description tag to be unique and complementary to the page it describes. This is the information that many of the search engines use to display a description of your page.

Keyword tags: Most search engines have de-emphasized use of the keyword tag, but we feel it's a useful tool to help you organize your site content. If you followed the advice above regarding one topic per page, then your keyword tag would be pretty short and limited to that topic. It'll probably have more than one term in it as there might be multiple ways to describe the topic, but this is a good check that you're in the process of writing a well-optimized page.

Alt tags: You can use the meta alt tag to help search engines interpret what your nav buttons and images are about. Search engines can't "see" images, so unless you specifically tell them, that information will be ignored. If you have a picture of blue suede shoes, use the Alt tag to label it as "blue suede shoes."

Internal linking: Build your keyword phrases into the links on your pages that are used to navigate from page to page. For instance, a call to action might be "Contact ABC Company for more information about our blue suede shoes," with the phrase "more information about our blue suede shoes" as the link. Avoid using "clíck here" as the link.

I've created quite a to-do líst of SEO Copywriting Tips, but when done properly, your SEO copywriting efforts will help yield long-term results in the way of top placement on Google and Yahoo and, most importantly, increased opportuníty to reach new potential customers.

About The Author
Angela Charles is president of Pilot Fish, an Akron, Ohio, search engine optimization and web design firm specializing in industrial clients.

Recession? It's a Great Time to Be a Marketer!

by Ann Handley

The massive bailout of Bear Stearns could be the first of a wave of financial rescues. US housing is overpriced. Retail sales are in the dumps. And the consumer-spending binge is over.

"In short," writes Jack Neff in yesterday's Ad Age, "it's a great time to be in marketing."

In fact, previous recessions have been very, very good for marketing, spawning (among other things) soap operas, modern cable networks, airline loyalty programs, the iPod, Crest Whitestrips, Axe body spray and lots more, Neff says.

In other words, relax - it's not so bad. Breathe in. Breathe out. And then consider these guidelines for marketing in a down economy:

• Don't cut the budget. Assuming you can still afford it, "recessions offer what may be unprecedented opportunities to market in an environment of relatively less noise as others cut back," Neff says.

• Maintain strong launches. Some things really are recession-proof.Even in the deepest, darkest recessions, "things that truly appeal to consumers, be they soap operas, CNN or disposable training pants, still flourished," Neff writes.

• Get a little silly. "You can't go wrong with diversion: Media, entertainment and other forms of cheap frivolity can be the bread-and-circus salve for hard times -- from the soap operas of the 1930s to MTV in the 1980s to [in 2002] the iPod and Axe body spray."

• Beware the slash and burn. Keep your prices up, unless you have a good reason not to (like a one-time event to move inventory or similar). "Unless the price reduction is truly strategic -- e.g., a discount retailer or brokerage or a one-time event to drive traffic -- you could live to regret it," he says.

• You might as well dance. "Some of the most successful recession-era launches were natural offshoots of the conditions created by or causing the crisis, i.e. high gas prices spawning fuel-efficient cars [or] interest bearing checking accounts that sprang from high interest rates in the 1970s and '80s," according to Neff.

To Use or Not To Use? Duplicate Content

By Andy MacDonald

Duplicate content is a hotly debated issue when it comes to how it affects your web-site ranking. And it’s become an even bigger issue over time as spammers and other malicious Internet users have taken to the practice of content scraping, or scraping the content from a web site to use on their own with only minor changes to the appearance, not to the content itself.

Content scraping has become such a problem that search engines now look for duplicate copy, even when it’s hidden behind a link like the Similar Pages that Google uses for related content. If they find it, your site may be lowered in the rankings or even delisted completely.

Still, the duplicate-copy issue isn’t as simple as it may seem. Some people think there’s too much worry about it, whereas others insist the problem needs to be addressed. And both are right to some degree. Let me explain.

First, you need to understand that not all duplicate content is the same kind. You need to appreciate some differences.

Reprints: This is duplicate content published on multiple sites with the permission of the copyright holder. These are the articles that you or others create and then distribute to create links back to your site or to sites that are relevant to the content of yours. Reprints are not bad duplicate content, but they can get your site thrown into the realm of Similar Pages, which means they’ll be buried behind other results.

Site Mirroring: This is the kind of duplication that can cause one or more of your sites to be delisted from a search engine. Site mirroring is literally keeping exact copies of your web site in two different places on the Internet. Web sites used to practice site mirroring all the time as a way to avoid downtime when one site crashed. These days, server capabilities are such that site mirroring isn’t as necessary as it once was, and search engines now “dis-include” mirrored content because of the spamming implications it can have. Spammers have been known to mirror sites to create a false Internet for the purpose of stealing user names, passwords, account numbers, and other personal information.

Content Scraping: Content scraping is taking the content from one site and reusing it on another site with nothing more than cosmetic changes. This is another tactic used by spammers, and it’s also often a source of copyright infringement.

Same Site Duplication: If you duplicate content across your own web site, you could also be penalized for duplicate content. This becomes especially troublesome with blogs, because there is often a full blog post on the main page and then an archived blog post on another page of your site. This type of duplication can be managed by simply using a partial post, called a snippet, that links to the full post in a single place on your web site.

Of these types of duplicate content, two are especially harmful to your site: site mirroring and content scraping. If you’re using site mirroring, you should consider using a different backup method for your web site. If you’re using content scraping you could be facing legal action for copyright infringement. Content scraping is a practice that’s best avoided completely.

Even though reprints and same-site duplication are not entirely harmful, they are also not helpful. And in fact they can be harmful if they’re handled in the wrong way. You won’t win any points with a search engine crawler if your site is full of content that’s used elsewhere on the Web. Reprints, especially those that are repeated often on the Web, will eventually make a search engine crawler begin to take notice.

Once it takes notice, the crawler will try to find the original location of the reprint. It does this by looking at where the content appeared first. It also looks at which copy of an article the most links point to and what versions of the article are the result of content scraping. Through a process of elimination, the crawler narrows the field until a determination can be made. Or if it’s still too difficult to tell where the content originated, the crawler will select from trusted domains.

Once the crawler has determined what content is the original, all of the other reprints fall into order beneath it or are eliminated from the index.

If you must use content that’s not original, or if you must have multiple copies of content on your web site, there is a way to keep those duplications from adversely affecting your search rankings. By using the or tags, you can prevent duplicated pages from being indexed by the search engine.

The tag should be placed in the page header for the page that you don’t want to be indexed. It’s also a good idea to allow the crawler that finds the tag to follow links that might be on the page. To do that, your code (which is a meta tag) should look like this:



That small tag of code tells the search engine not to index the page, but to follow the links on the page. This small snippet of code can help you quickly solve the problem of search engines reading your duplicate content.

So in conclusion, my advice would be to avoid any type of duplicate content if your main goal is to achieve high search engine rankings on your website. By providing fresh & unique content on your website, you are not only pleasing the search engine, but more importantly, your pleasing your user, which should be your ultimate goal as a webmaster.

Andy MacDonald, CEO of Swift Media UK, a website design & search marketing company. For daily tips on Blogging, Marketing, SEO & Making Money Online, Checkout our SEO & Marketing Tips for Webmasters blog or Subscribe by RSS.

Make It Fun to Keep Them Loyal

What makes consumers love your Web site? The answer might be as simple as child's play. Research shows that customers have a more positive attitude toward a site when their online experience is engaging and enjoyable. And enjoyment is an important determinant of why consumers shop.

When they become immersed in your site, customers view being on it as fun rather than work. Since their experience feels like play, they return more—making them more loyal to the site, the company and the brands it sells.

What creates this immersion? Research suggests you gain loyalty when:

-The site challenges customers. Customers don't want to be bored. When the skill required to navigate your Web site marginally exceeds customers' search skills, they see the experience as an enjoyable escape rather than a burden.

-Customers believe they have the skills to find what they want on the site. If customers can't follow the site navigation, they will lose interest in their search and, perhaps, your company and its products.

-Customers feel they have control over the search. If the navigation is too complicated for the average user to master, they won't return to the site.

The Po!nt: Design your Web site with the end-user in mind. Make it a fun challenge, not a task. Customers who become immersed in your site will be more loyal to the site, your company and your brands.

Source: "Play, Flow, and the Online Search Experience" by Charla Mathwick and Edward Rigdon

Marketing & the S Word: See Spitzer and Paris Hilton

by chris crum

Since controversy and marketing has been such a popular subject, let's dim the lights, throw on some Color Me Badd, and talk about sex in marketing.

"Sex sells." Perhaps as cliche as "There's no such thing as bad publicity", but I think this one is a little more true.

I believe that while "bad" publicity can sometimes work in one's favor, that is not always the case. Sex and "sexiness", however, will always get people's attention and will ultimately sell products (given the right target audience).

Sexy Content Attracts Marketing Dollars

I'm sure you're aware of the recent Elliot Spitzer scandal (For a great read on marketing prostitution on the Internet, check this one out). Well, this scandal has led to dollar signs flashing in the eyes of marketers and businesses who see an opportunity to capitalize on the depravity of an ex-governor.

Michael Gray, aka Graywolf recently pointed to a story about Playgirl Magazine offering Sptitzer $1 Million to pose nude. To me personally, this would appear to be the opposite of sexy, but apparently some disagree (cue Color Me Badd record scratch and turn the lights back on).


Gray writes:

It's a win-win scenario for Playgirl. Let's go with the most likely outcome and assume client 9 says no, playgirl generated a decent amount of press, links, and attention, for the cost of a press release and some PR work.

Let's enter dreamland and imagine he goes for the deal, I have no doubt that it would turn out to be the highest selling issue of Playgirl, attracting a huge amount of sales and advertising, more than enough to cover the $1 million dollar paycheck.

Gray makes a very good point. It only makes sense that such an issue would attract a huge amount of advertising dollars. It would be like the super bowl of male nudity.

That's a case where marketing would capitalize on so-called "sexy" content.

Sexy Ads Leave A Lasting Impression

Then of course there are cases (perhaps more frequently) where the ads themselves are the "sexy" content. Of course the Super Bowl GoDaddy ad and Paris Hilton Hardee's ad immediately come to mind.

Why? Because people are still talking about them (not just me) to this day, and they are both I believe more than a couple years old.

Why are people still talking about them? Because obviously they left a lasting impression and got people talking. The Hardee's commercial I believe was not even aired on television if I'm not mistaken, and was limited to Internet viewing, yet I bet it is the most remembered commercial that Hardee's has ever had (although I must admit I was always partial to the Boyz II Men biscuit song).

Is Using Sex in Marketing Always the Best Idea?

Just like any marketing strategy, keep your target audience in mind as well as how you want your business to be perceived. So I will say no. It's not always the best idea. But I will say this: It's likely to get you some attention and make people remember you for better or for worse.


About the Author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network.

Curing Banner Blindness

By Chris Crum

Many people think that banner advertising on the Internet is all but dead. They cite things like "banner blindness" and lack of conversions. Tell us why you think banner advertising is dead or alive.

I'll say this: Poor and ineffective banner advertising is dead. And guess what. It was never alive to begin with. Banner advertising itself is alive and well. Why else do you think you still see it everywhere?

Yes, "banner blindness" exists, but your job as an advertiser is to cure it. This means coming up with an ad that people can't help but acknowledge.

Commanding Attention

It only makes sense that before you get a potential customer to click on an ad, you have to command their attention. An easy approach to this is to display an attractive eye-catching ad (ok, perhaps this is easier said than done). Common approaches to this technique are to use animation and "flashy" interactive ads.

Sometimes Simple is Better

Sometimes however, simple ads can be more effective. I had a conversation with Susan Coppersmith, the director of ad sales at our own iEntry, and she brought up the point that sometimes simple can command just as much attention as a flashy ad. For this to work though, I believe that the ad has to inspire curiosity - the need to find out more.

Garbage Clicks Don't Count

When displaying your banner ads, remember you're in it to win it. In other words, if you're not going to win the clicker's business, what is the point? This is where targeting comes into play. You may put up the most beautiful and exciting ad ever created, but if it's not displayed in the right place it is simply going to be ineffective.

This is also true for irrelevant ads. By this, I mean if the ad has little or nothing to do with the actual landing page, you are most likely not going to get a conversion. An example that comes to mind is the type of ad you see all the time that encourages clicks by featuring some kind of a mini game. Shoot the duck, or something like that. It may inspire people to click just because they want to "shoot the duck", but when that is their only intention, what is it really going to get you? They're not going to buy anything from you. When they get to your landing page, they're going to say to themselves, "Why did I just do that?" and turn around and go back to the page they were on. Those are "garbage clicks".

That's not to say however, that if such an ad is placed on a well targeted site, they may "shoot the duck" and land on something they are in fact interested in. So if you can entice them into clicking an ad and actually deliver a well-targeted product, then more power to you.

It's Not Just About the Clicks

Of course, clicks and conversions aren't the only important factors in banner advertising. The branding that banner ads can provide can be much more valuable than an immediate conversion. And if you advertise in the right place, it can build your reputation in the subconcious of potential customers. "Advertising in a reputable network can be of great advantage to a small company. This leads to building credibility which will lead to sales in the long run," says Coppersmith. "You're often perceived to be as good as the company you keep."

Even if they ignore your ad as a result of "banner blindness", that doesn't mean that your company isn't leaving an impression in the back of their mind. Perhaps they don't have a need for you right then anyway. But should the need for what you provide arise in the future, they just might recall seeing your logo somewhere and associate you with that very need. Isn't that priceless?

In the End...

So in the end, whether you take the flashy route or the simple one with your ads, remember, it's all about targeting the right people as well as burning your brand into their minds. As far as instant gratification, if the clicker gets to your landing page and doesn't find the product interesting, it doesn't matter how good your ad looks. But keep in mind that while immediate conversions are great, that isn't all there is to it.

Which type of ad do you prefer to avoid banner blindness - flashy ones or simple ones?


About the Author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network.

Four Tough ESP Questions

Now, wait just a minute. Don't hand that online campaign to just any email service provider (ESP)—at least not before you ask some hard questions.

Here are four tough ones that SendLabs' Josh Nason says you should always ask an ESP:

1. What do I get? You might want a full-service shop that handles everything from software to creative services, or you might prefer an a la carte approach that complements your in-house skill sets. Make sure you know upfront what the ESP can and cannot provide.

2. How's your customer service? Ask how long it takes an ESP to respond to reported problems: the industry norm, according to Nason, is within an hour. Also investigate how their service levels might vary based on the plan you choose.

3. What will this cost me? Most ESPs charge either by the month or by the campaign. "There are positives and negatives to both," says Nason, "so … communicate your list sizes, your deployment habits and your needs" to find the right payment plan.

4. What's the word on the street about you? A quality ESP will have a relationship with an email reputation monitor that confirms email arrives safely, provides blacklist monitoring and offers spam checks. "Feel free to ask [an ESP] what their latest reputation score is," he says.

The Po!nt: "If checking out a company's site or speaking with a rep gives you that not-so-confident feeling, there's probably a reason for it," says Nason. So keep looking until you feel comfortable. By asking the right questions, you'll find the right fit.

Source: MarketingProfs.

Creating Your Company's Own Online Reality

"While many business owners are beginning to understand that information is the currency of the Internet," says Rick Sloboda of WebCopyPlus," few act on it." Yes, your business has the potential to create a website that can go toe-to-toe with larger corporate sites, but there's a chance that ill-defined, irrelevant and self-centered content may conspire to undermine this natural advantage.

Instead, use language to create an online reality that impresses your target audience. "The right web content will make you concrete and credible on the ... Internet," he says. Here are some tips on creating the right image:

-Use customer-centric copy. Small businesses tend to be preoccupied with their own story. People who visit your website don't want to hear about you; they want to know what you or your product can do for them.

-Publish case studies. This is something larger companies do—so why shouldn't you? It never hurts to offer a detailed examination of a successful project. In addition, case studies build a sense of trust.

-Put your guarantee in plain sight. Highlighting your promise communicates confidence, and creates a sense of stability.

The Po!nt: "Your web copywriting doesn't describe reality, it creates it," says Sloboda. "In fact, every word you feature on your website has the ability to build—or damage—how prospects perceive you."

Source: An unpublished article by Rick Sloboda.

Failing to Make an Impression?

Ted Mininni

Apparently marketers aren’t cutting it, according to a recent study. Marketers aren’t making a mark with consumers when they launch new products. An intriguing article in MediaPost on March 6th, New Product Messages Aren’t Making Intended Impressions points to data collected by Information Resources, Inc, New Products magazine, comScore and Schneider Associates.

The upshot? More than a whopping 3/4 out of 1000 consumers surveyed said they couldn’t recall a new product launched over the past year. Only 23% could do so.

That’s pretty amazing when you think about it. Then again, maybe not, when you consider the plethora of products hitting the stores non-stop these days. Still, the onus is on marketers to come up with hot new products consumers will actually want to buy, and then to make their marketing message a memorable one. Apparently, given the data, marketers just aren’t cutting the mustard.

In the article, New Product magazine editor Joan Holleran is quoted: “The (new product) message isn’t getting through.” Who was successful in getting through? When presented with a list of new product intros for 2007, Apple’s iPhone topped the list with a recall rate of 37%. The rest of the top 10 products consumers remembered: Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, Febreze-branded candles, Domino’s Oreo Dessert Pizza, diet aid Alli, Oreo Cakesters, Diet Coke Plus, Subway Fresh Fit Meals, Motorola’s RAZR2 and Listerine White Strips.

The most memorable new products in 2007 were line extensions. Top new product sellers last year: Campbell’s Reduced Sodium Soup, General Mills Fiber One Chewy Bars, Dannon’s DanActive Probiotic Dairy Drinks and Activia Light Yogurt, Sara Lee’s Heart Hearty & Delicious breads.

Takeaways from the research:
• Top impression making products used an experimental marketing mix: blogs, WOM and PR-generated media to get the word out. This trend is expected to continue, even though traditional channels will still be used.
• Look for more line extensions in 2008 and for success with products that multitask like the iPhone.
• Health and wellness trends will continue to strengthen and the demand for functional food and beverages will “explode”, according to IRI EVP Business/Consumer Insights, Anne Berlack. “Retailers and manufacturers that marry functional benefits with effective consumer education, as Dannon did last year with DanActive immunity-boosting beverages will win big”, she added. Agreed.
• Products that constitute more indulgent purchases will continue to trend. No explanation needed, I think. Upscale, luxury and self-pampering products continue to be well-received by consumers.
• Non-food products that create a pleasant experience for consumers as they conduct everyday chores will also continue to score well. Current new product intros that have been successful in this regard: Tide Simple Pleasures and Gain Joyful Expressions Detergents, Febreze Noticeable Air Fresheners.

What does all of this point to? If new products are going to meet with success in the marketplace, better consumer insights will have to be gained via research. These insights will have to meet consumers where they are, or they are doomed to fail.

Questions:
• Which new products can you recall from 2007?
• Were you motivated to purchase a new product last year?
• What should marketers do to make new products more memorable when there are so many new items hitting the retail stores?

I’d love to hear from you.

Marketing Through Contests

By Chris Crum

Increase awareness of your business...


Here's some breaking news for you. People like to get free stuff. I've talked before about giving away promotional items for marketing and branding purposes, but now I want to discuss marketing through contests.

A contest can be a great way to get people to notice your business, particularly if you are an online business.

"We all like to win something for free. Contests offer an attractive marketing vehicle for a small business to acquire new clients and create awareness," says Darrell Zahorsky at About.com. "You don't need to run a billion dollar giveaway like Pepsi, just a valuable prize to your target market."

For one, you don't have to give something away for free to every customer. You have people basically competing with each other to win one product (or however many you want to offer) .

Branding

While they're entering, you are putting your brand right in their faces whether they like it or not. They may on the surface not care about what your business is about and only want to get their hands on a free item, but they'll know about you regardless. You will be on the map.

Traffic

Promoting a contest can be a fantastic way to boost the traffic to your site. You can run ad campaigns promoting it if you wish, but there are also free ways to promote a contest such as submitting it to sites like Contest Beat.

Contest Beat is simply a blog that links to a different contest on the Internet every day. And they'll do it for free.



Subscribers

If you run a blog, a contest is an excellent way to gain subscribers to your feed (especially if you make signing up a guideline for entering). Take Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal. He recently launched a contest in which he would give away an iPod to one lucky subscriber. All they had to do was sign up for his RSS feed and watch for something that would only appear in the feed. He only has to give away one iPod, but I bet he attracted a good deal of subscribers.

Sure, there is the possibility that they will just unsubscribe after the contest is over, but in the meantime, they will be exposed to Andy's content, and it is his job (and his staff's) to write good enough stuff to make people want to stay (not that they have any problems there).

The beauty about running a contest is that you can completely control the rules. You can aim the guidelines to focus on your needs. If you need more subscribers, have sign-ups count as entries. If you need content, have people submit articles, etc.

If you've ever run a contest as a marketing strategy, please let us know about it. Were the results favorable?

Is Your Mission Empowering or Synergistic?

Drew McLellan

Promises of empowerment, lofty goals of collaboration, and heartfelt expressions that recognize the true value of human initiative. Toss them all into a blender and you have a confusion smoothie. And maybe a mission statement.

The mission statement. Why do you exist? Should be pretty straightforward, right? So why it is that most companies' mission statements look like they came straight out of the Dilbert mission statement generator?

Most are absolutely ambiguous and vague - any company could swap out the logo and voila, the mission statement could be theirs too.

Why?

I wonder if it is the two fisted punch of "we're afraid" and "we don't really know how/why we're different."

Mission statements should be bold. They should clearly acknowledge "we are about THIS and therefore, we aren't about THAT." But most companies are afraid to exclude anything or to suggest they can't be everything to everyone.

So they get into their committees and wordsmith a statement that no one can argue with because no one can actually define what it means.

As Seth Godin commented, "Mission statements used to have a purpose. The purpose was to force management to make hard decisions about what the company stood for. A hard decision means giving up one thing to get another."

So I'm curious...for those of you on the consulting/agency side: Do you help your clients create/refine mission statements? If so, how do you help them avoid the Dilbert version?

If you are on the client/organization side: Do you have a mission statement that actually defines your organization's reason for existing? If so, how did you push past the pabulum language to something that actually had teeth?

Blogging the eBay Way

If you witnessed the recent uproar over eBay's decision to restructure its fees, you know that website's users can be an opinionated crowd. And you can bet the company put plenty of thought into its new corporate blog, which is sure to be critiqued nine ways to Sunday.

So as you plan your company's blog—or brainstorm potential improvements—you might want to consider these points, from an interview the blog's author, Richard Brewer-Hay, gave to Fortune Small Business magazine:

-Hire an independent blogger to bolster credibility.
EBay assigned an outsider to oversee the blog. And Brewer-Hay insists on independence. "My words go straight up onto the blog, unedited," he tells FSB. "There's got to be an authenticity to it, an honesty to it, otherwise there's no point in doing it in the first place."

-Offer rich content.
The blog will cover everything from conversations with eBay's CEO to discussions of the company's "green" credentials. Watch for employee contributions and Q&A sessions with the blog's readership.

-Allow all voices to be heard.
"People can comment … and comments are going to be open. You're going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly," Brewer-Hay says.

The Po!nt: "[T]his is first time [eBay users] will have the opportunity to talk directly to us," concludes Brewer-Hay. "I've read things out there in the blogosphere. They are one-way dialogues right now, and I'm looking forward to making them two-way conversations."

Source: Fortune Small Business.

Get in the Mood to Shop

Stores invest a great deal of time and attention in determining the best way to design floor space and shelving to create the optimal customer experience. Research shows that understanding customers' motivation for visiting your store should affect its design.

Customers who see shopping as a form of recreation—something that is fun—prefer highly arousing environments. This might include warm, saturated or bright colors, fast-paced music and complex layouts that provide lots of product stimulation. These customers won't mind if you frequently reorganize the store's layout and displays.

Shoppers who arrive with a clear task in mind—such as buying a specific item—prefer a more subdued environment. They don't want to be distracted from their mission. These customers prefer simple merchandise presentation and cooler, less saturated colors such as light blue.

How do you satisfy both types of customers? Wall color and overall layout are the elements most difficult to change, so design these to create moderate arousal. Use more stimulating elements—such as background music—when customers are likely to be recreational shoppers, such as on weekends. If the type of shopper varies by department, design each area so that it complements the reason most shoppers go to that section.

The Po!nt: Contented customers buy more. When creating or changing the décor of a store, it is important to consider the type of customers who frequent the store and their primary motivation for shopping.

Source: "When Should a Retailer Create an Exciting Store Environment?" by Velitchka D. Kaltcheva and Barton A. Weitz, Journal of Marketing, 2006.

Choosing the Right Hosting Provider‏

Choosing a Hosting Provider

Anyone using web applications for business purposes knows that choosing a hosting provider is crucial to the success and execution of those apps. If your hosting provider is unreliable, the results can be disastrous for small business owners. Prevent unrecoverable mistakes by arming yourself with the knowledge of what to look for in a hosting provider.

24x7x365 Support

Make sure your provider has tech support on hand at all times available by phone or chat to take care of any issues that might arise with your server. Hardware isn’t infallible. Excellent customer care and quick attention to issues will make the difference between a few hours and a few days of downtime.

Name Brand Hardware

Name brands are recognizable for a reason. If a brand is known for quality and dependability, the product you purchase from that brand will usually follow suit. Look for companies who say what brand of servers and products they use in their datacenters. If they aren’t telling you, chances are you’ve never heard of the brand.

Redundant Network

The network is the heart of any IT Infrastructure provider. Without a redundant network, you’re exponentially increasing your risk of downtime. A fully redundant network means that your network can lose any one piece of networking gear at any one level and data will continue to flow uninterrupted.

Tier 1 Bandwidth Providers

In addition to a fully redundant network you also need great bandwidth providers. Tier 1 bandwidth providers typically own their entire network and it either stretches a continent or the entire globe. A few examples of Tier 1 providers include Level3, NTT, AT&T, Global Crossing & Savvis. Tier 1 providers ensure that your content gets to your visitor using the most efficient route possible.

Quick Provisioning of Servers

Typically when people order a product or service of any kind it’s because they need it. Don’t settle for waiting days for your server to be ready. Find a provider that guarantees quick provisioning, getting you online and working in no time.

Automated reboots and automated Operating System reloads

Insisting on an IT Infrastructure provider who has invested in self-service systems will save you time and money over the duration of your hosting deployment. Rebooting servers yourself when they fail and being able to install a fresh Operating System on your hardware at the click of a mouse is indispensible.

Choosing a provider may seem like a daunting task given the vast array of providers these days. Knowing what to look for will make the decision easier and help to keep your online business needs running smoothly.

Please visit The Planet to see how the “The Planet Difference” can make a difference in your business.

What Social Media Marketing Is Not

by B.L. Ochman

No doubt about it, buzzwords—from viral to meme to mashup to social media itself—abound. As Hugh Macleod joked in a recent Twitter post, "Pretty soon we'll have 'Social' prefixing everything: Social Marketing, Social Communicating, Social Cornflakes."

Yet, despite all the talk, the mainstream media coverage, the conferences, courses, and books on social media marketing, there's quite a bit of ambivalence, fear, and sometimes outright hostility directed toward social media by CMOs, CEOs, and CFOs.

All of this leads to the dreaded "we just want to stick our toe in the water, and see what this stuff is all about" and "we want to do a small, low-budget social media project and track the ROI."

Danger, Will Robinson!! Danger, Will Robinson!!!

Social media isn't a one-shot deal

Social media isn't a technique, a short-term project, an experiment, an event, a one-shot deal, or a quick fix. It's not something you throw money at, and using it doesn't guarantee sales or influence.

Social media is a set of tools that can help you make your company or your products or your services what people recommend to other people who trust their judgment.

Those tools provide absolutely anyone to establish credibility and gain trust. And the information, good or bad, that's created and shared with those tools stays in search engines forever.

Let's take a look at how and what people share with friends and family. Among the tools and applications they use:

-Photo and video sharing
-mail and IM
-Podcasting, video casting, video conferencing
-Self-published and self-promoted e-books
-Text messages
-Shared bookmarking and annotated link sharing
-Social shopping
-Blogs and microblogs
-Business, personal, interest, and hobby groups

They use those tools to pass on information that is...

-Interesting
-Amusing
-Poignant
-Relevant
-Useful
-Educational
-Arresting
-Beware the kid with a webcam?

Nothing's really changed about the way information spreads, except the tools and the speed of transmission. In the past, people with a large network of friends, acquaintances, and relatives, and a storage well of trust, could influence a lot of people.


Now anyone with a webcam can generate an opinion tsunami. A kid in Bulgaria can spread ideas, good or bad news, jokes, memes, or fashions—worldwide—faster than you can say "viral." One blog with a big audience can bring down a Fortune 100 company's stock.

While corporations, agencies, and self-proclaimed social media marketers are debating the relative merits of listening to their customers, the customers already are on blogs, in consumer opinion sites, in social networks, on IM, and face to face... sharing their opinions about these same products and services.

The big bucks spent on traditional advertising and PR, online and offline, are nowhere near as likely to influence sales and reputation as what friends, family and coworkers say about something you are considering buying.

Communication isn't a fad

People young and old use these tools and pass along information in a casual way because this way of spreading information is now part of the culture.

Yet corporations are still expecting that a static Web site with no feedback mechanism, banner advertising, multimillion-dollar Super Bowl ads, top-down messages, and over-saturated search engine advertising will pass for communication. Then they wonder why their marketing doesn't drive sales.

A company that has open channels of communications that include social media tools has the opportunity to interact with the influentials. But they need to speak in a human voice, to answer and ask questions, to provide information.

Because in a crisis, only a company with open lines of communication can be heard. And only those companies that participate in social media will have the opportunity to be heard and perhaps believed.

The value of a network?

One of the big concerns of CMOs, CEOs, and CFOs (besides that they're about to lose their jobs) is that people will say something bad about the company in social media. And that's true, they will, if there is something bad to be said. But more often than not altruism drives word-of-mouth. And, of course, those same social networks can help a CMO or CEO find a job, too.

The more people a company can reach who already have strong social networks, the more likely the company can spread a message through those networks—if the company was already a trusted member of the community.

As Chris Brogan recently pointed out on Twitter, "The value of a network? Being able to reach out and ask questions. The price? Being there to help when you can." Networks also provide early warnings of problems, and give members a chance to respond and discuss solutions.

Social media provides the long-term opportunity for companies to be interesting, or amusing, or helpful, or serious about something their clients are serious about. That becomes an opportunity to listen and to change—and to become the topic of dinner-table and water-cooler conversation.



B.L. Ochman is a social media marketing strategist for S&P 500 companies, including McGraw Hill, IBM, Cendant, and American Greetings. She publishes What's Next Blog and Ethics Crisis, where readers can confess their worst ethics transgressions and others can rate them on a scale of one to ten. She also blogs for MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog.

How to Keep Up With Social Media: 'Think Liquid' Applied

by Geoff Livingston

Note: This article is an amended excerpt from the book Now Is Gone.

Regardless of technological change, the future of social media will be dictated by the community's rapid adoption of new media forms.

Change occurs dynamically in online communities as new applications develop. Though behavior has changed, relationships must be maintained. That means marketers must be flexible moving forward.

At any one time there seem to be hot social media networks and technologies. Whether it's Facebook or Mahalo or another social network du jour, marketers will be faced with the consistent challenge of finding new ways to use media forms to engage the community.

Like water, the marketer must move with the community and learn the newest technology's impact on communications. And, like water, this type of activity follows the path of least resistance.

It's important to note that as "webolution" continues marketers should avoid getting bedazzled by hot media forms. We've seen them come and go. Excite, Prodigy, AOL, Friendster, MySpace (fading, but still relevant) and increasingly Yahoo are brands of the past.

These passing technologies demonstrate that professionally we cannot get too focused on specific technologies. Why? Because they will evolve, change, and in some cases disappear.

Thinking Liquid in a Dynamic Environment

Marketers are better served by liquid fluidity in their thought processes and approaches. That way they can adapt to sudden changes and new, hot technologies as social media continues its march forward. As this natural process continues to unfold over time and communities evolve, their information needs and consumption of media will evolve, too.1

With increasingly diverse and changing marketing environments, successful marketers will focus on social media principles rather than tactics. Basic social media principles can serve as guidance no matter the environment.
By relying on principles and using fluid approaches to meet the media form, marketers can best serve their communities of interest over time. Those who cannot or won't play by the principles of social media risk irrelevance because they will not be able to adapt to change.

The following Seven Principles of Social Media Communications are discussed throughout Now Is Gone:

-Relinquish message control.
-Honesty, ethics and transparencies are musts.
-Participation within the community is marketing.
-Communication to audiences is an outdated 20th century concept.
-Build value for the community.
-Inspire your community with real, exciting information (personality, genuine outreach, etc.).
-Intelligently manage media forms to build a stronger, loyal community.

Collectively, those are the basic rules for successful social media marketing and PR. One thing that is clear throughout these principles is that marketing communications and PR are about building relationships with the community as a whole, and with individual members.

These seven principles enable intelligent conversational marketing within a wide variety of social media forms. If companies put them first, they will be able to adapt to their communities' needs. The results that companies are looking for are the natural byproduct of engaging with communities, on the communities' terms.

Examples of Thinking Liquid

Goodwill

Goodwill of Greater Washington loves its blog, its social-media-engaged fashion show, and the dialogue it has created with the vintage-clothing industry. Goodwill wanted to serve its readership with more than a blog, and with the show endeavored to create an online event. Months later, the local outreach effort receives more than 1000 unique visitors weekly and its shopper conversion rate is 4.5%.2 Even better, national media outlets like CNN, Good Morning America and the Washington Post have discovered Goodwill's online fashion show, turning it into a national phenomenon.

SMR and Ford

The Social Media Release (SMR) was a concept started two years ago by PR 2.0 mavens Todd Defren and Brian Solis. The form took on several iterations and has been experimented with by several marketers. But Ford Motor Company and its agency the Social Media Group (SMG) has take the SMR to a new level for various products like the Ford Focus and F150. Ford's innovations in the SMR include a new storyboard approach, which focuses less on the possible conversation value of social media press releases and more on catalyzing content creators to take parts and develop their own content. It also assumes that some readers will want to engage in certain media forms, and not all of them. Also, the revised SMR delivers "digital snippets of information."3

The resulting smorgasbord of social media creates easily digestible "snacks" allowing for consumption by reader choice.4 Rather than issuing the SMR with their media on the wires, Ford and SMG are leveraging existing social networks like Flickr and YouTube to ensure they provide easily access to content from a variety of ways. Ford's social PR effort is truly liquid.

ACDSee

A company that provides image management software, ACDSee uses a hybridized version of social and traditional web media to engage its community. ACDSee community manager Connie Bensen says that once community members are engaged, through the blog, the company uses live webinars to demo products. The company's evangelist team works with prospects with live comments enabled. In one case, 100 attended, 90 percent of whom did not own ACDSee's products, and 173 questions were asked.5

***

As these brief examples show, the discussion on corporate social media needs to be more than just about ethics and conversation methods. In many ways, these represent the rules of engagement and forms of interaction, respectively.

But most organizations need to truly engage their community in a manner that fits their stakeholders media consumption needs. Tactical social media outlets should never determine marketing strategy and outreach; the community should. Remember, Think Liquid.

Endnotes:

1Kyle Flaherty, "My Six Truths on Social Media," Engage in Pr, July 12, 2007.

2Ylan Mui, Washington Post, "Goodwill's New Look: Cheap Can Also Be Chic," October 29, 2007.

3Maggie Fox, Social Media Group, "The Social Media Press Release," January 21, 2008.

4Jeremiah Owyang, "Do You Respect Media Snackers? Tell me why," The Web Strategist, October 24, 2007.

5Connie Bensen, "The Value of Real Time Interaction & Webinars," My Conversations, November 2, 2007.



Geoff Livingston is the author of Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media and CEO of Livingston Communications (www.livingstonbuzz.com). He blogs at the Buzz Bin (www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/). Reach him via geoff [at] livingstonbuzz [dot] com.

12 Global Small Business Trends to Watch in 2008

by Laurel Delaney

Small businesses are the heart and soul of our world entrepreneurial economy. They create, inspire, and fundamentally change people's lives.

In the United States, we keep nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit—a force that built America—and people from all over the world, rather than offering criticism, are engaging in the highest form of flattery: imitation.

We must be doing something right!

Let's take a look at 12 global small business trends to watch in 2008—trends that can be embraced by any culture and will add value to any nation.


1. Embrace the world

Small businesses will embrace the world and make globalization come true. When there is nowhere to grow, branching out globally offers a wealth of opportunity, including rapid expansion.

2. Export like mad

Small businesses will discover that a weak US dollar offers an exciting, challenging, and fantastic chance to export. It makes all American goods a flashing blue light special. As a result, small businesses will start to export like mad. Their mandate in 2008 will become "Go forth and export!"

3. Do whatever it takes

Small businesses will do whatever it takes to survive—good times or bad—and going global will be the ticket to thrive. For most entrepreneurs, decisions throughout the year will be made fast, and living with the consequences will be a fact of business life.

Globalization 3.0 will be driven not by the folks in India or China but by budding "born global" entrepreneurs and small businesses taking their businesses global from anywhere.

4. Adopt the outsider lens

Small businesses are good at adopting an insider lens when making judgments while immersed in a situation. Soon, though, small businesses will adopt the outsider lens, which involves removing or detaching oneself from a situation and establishing a realistic understanding of the risks involved.

This is a cleaner lens and is more useful in doing business with the world, especially when one must be sensitive to so many different cultures.

5. Disturb the status quo

Small business will not settle for the ordinary, or for establishing rules, because they have things to accomplish. They will break rules and disturb the status quo to overcome obstacles and achieve brilliant results.

6. Lead the way

Small businesses will continue to lead the way in global trade. They typically generate 29 percent of the US export sales in a given year, and in 2005 they accounted for nearly $300 billion of the $906 billion generated by all US exporters.

Doing what's right and what matters will empower small businesses to stay the course of international expansion, even if analysis might point to a different path.

7. Prove global small business is the real deal

Global small businesses are the real deal, and they will prove it by continuing to deliver results across borders—leaving people and businesses better off than they were before.

The ideas they promote and profit from are authentic and are based on the genuine needs and desires of consumers worldwide.

8. Set priorities

Small businesses will align their goals for going global with their passion. They will set a few priorities (one being going global) and will charge on until results are achieved. They will become a world powerhouse of productivity.

9. Invest in collaborative innovation

Small businesses will realize that innovation is the fundamental driver of economic opportunity, greater globalization, job creation, improved business competitiveness, and thriving.

Social networking and media are merely the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to technology, anyone with a good idea, anywhere in the world, can now launch it in a heartbeat and for relatively little expense.

More collaborative innovation will take place this year, with further emphasis placed on orchestrating resources, reaching outside of an organization for new ideas, and fostering interaction, whether it involves your own participation or not.

10. Push forward

Small businesses will push forward to passionately engage their entire organization and their constituents, but they also will pay attention to managing the push-and-pull of interactions. This is an area where we will not have much control. Get used to it.

Prepare to use the Internet as an effective tool to create market pull by raising your company's profile and getting other people to talk about it. Push forward to build Internet share, which is critical for success, rather than mindshare.

11. Forget about size

It doesn't matter (unless you are talking about an entrepreneur's dream—and if that is the case, then dream big). With powerful software and outsourced processes, small businesses can go head to head with large companies.

More than ever, small businesses have the advantage over large companies: Small businesses are adaptable, flexible, resilient, maneuverable, and more global.

12. Ensure knowledge sharing

Small business owners will begin to foster knowledge-sharing across disciplines, making the ups and downs of the organization more transparent to all. Cooperation and sharing of ideas typically promotes the best possible results. This belief will encourage continuous improvement and high achievement in 2008.



Laurel Delaney (LaurelDelaney.com) is the founder of GlobeTrade.com and the creator of "Borderbuster," an e-newsletter, and The Global Small Business Blog. She can be reached at ldelaney@globetrade.com.

Web 2.0 Politics: What Brands Can Learn From the 2008 Presidential Campaigns

by Robert F. Hogeboom

"The Internet community is wondering what its place in the world of politics is." Howard Dean, 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, Wired Magazine, January 2004

If the Internet community didn't know what its place in the world of politics was back in 2004, it most certainly does today.

Its "place" is to actively engage politicians and fellow citizens in conversations, promote candidates, help with campaign fundraising and educate other voters about particular candidates and issues—all through the use of new social-media tools that are vital to a candidate's overall marketing strategy.

Consider, for example, the most recent viral marketing sensation on the Web: an inspirational political music video titled "Yes We Can," starring presidential candidate Barack Obama and using lyrics base on a speech he delivered on the eve of the New Hampshire primary.

Its popularity (over 13 million views to date) is largely attributed to its authenticity. Acting without any involvement from the Obama campaign, a popular hip-hop artist created the video in an effort to influence voters to choose Obama in 2008, and he opted for the largest online video site, YouTube, as his distribution platform. While the Obama campaign was not involved in the making of the "Yes We Can" video, it actively encouraged Web users to spread it across the Net.

Such citizen participation through social media is playing an important role in the 2008 presidential race and is a markedly different campaign strategy than in 2000 and 2004. In past elections, campaigning on the Web consisted primarily of one-dimensional candidate Web sites featuring a combination of news, biographical information, and online donation functionality.

Today, by contrast, campaigns don't just have a Web presence—they have a Web 2.0 presence. Campaign managers are taking advantage of the Web's recent evolution to a more social and participatory medium (dubbed "Web 2.0") and leveraging new social-media tools such as social networks, blogs, social video sites, embeddable widgets, and more to reach millions of voters and engage them in the political process.

This shift in the political use of the Web from merely meeting voters' informational needs to providing them with community, connections, interactive and participatory features, and viral tools reflects current online marketing practices within the private sector. Consumer brand marketers have been actively experimenting with social-media marketing tactics and learning how they can be used to enhance the marketing communication process and, ultimately, influence consumers.

With the 2008 presidential race in full swing, brand marketers should start looking more closely at the political realm for creative uses and best practices of social-media marketing. Listed below are three key marketing opportunities for the use of new social media from a political vantage point.

1. Audience Reach

In December 2006, North Carolina Senator John Edwards announced his candidacy for the US presidency, not on national television but on the social video-sharing site YouTube, which has over 50 million US visitors per month.

Other politicians have followed Edwards's example and are now using YouTube to distribute campaign videos in hopes of reaching large audiences and making an intimate connection with them.

As audiences become even more fragmented because of an ever-increasing number of media choices, it is crucial for political candidates and consumer brands to access platforms that reach large segments of a target population. Popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are prime examples of social-media destinations that allow politicians to reach millions of voters and connect with them in a forum of their choice.

A majority of the Democratic and Republican nominees have a presence on these social-networking sites, and their personal microsite pages take advantage of MySpace's and Facebook's ability to reach millions of voters and engage them through the sites' interactive features (see No. 3, below, for more details).

What is potentially even more intriguing for brand marketers are politicians' attempts to reach the electorate through a mobile access solution such as Twitter. This social networking and microblogging service allows users to receive short text updates via multiple sources, including mobile text messaging, from other Twitter users.

Barack Obama, for example, has a Twitter page that keeps fellow Twitter users updated on his campaign. Though he has fewer than 7,000 followers on Twitter, the service has the unique ability to bridge the communication gap between voters and candidates out on the campaign trail. From a consumer brand marketing perspective, Twitter represents a potentially powerful technology for marketers to reach consumers who have opted in to receiving marketing communications through their always-on mobile devices.

2. Viral Marketing

To reach exponentially larger audiences, politicians need more than just a presence on social media sites—they need audiences that will voluntarily share their political content with others, which can then result in its viral distribution.

As a prime example, the Obama campaign is now helping to foster the proliferation of the "Yes We Can" video through Facebook, where on Obama's profile page users are asked to post the video on their own personal Facebook pages for others to view. When this action occurs, an entire user's network of Facebook friends is informed, and viral marketing ensues.

Other presidential candidates are trying to harness the power of social-networking users' "social graph"—the network of connections and relationships among people on a particular site.

The social-media campaign for former Republican candidate Fred Thompson, for instance, included a viral fundraising strategy, which encouraged bloggers and other social-media users to add a small fundraising tool to their online presence. The tool included name and email address fields for visitors of that page to fill out and start the donation process.

Along the same lines, former Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani's official Web site included an embeddable news widget that Web users could place on their social media pages. The widget would constantly display up-to-the-minute news stories about Giuliani and his campaign.

By turning social media users into distributors of political content, campaigns can now reach an exponentially larger audience with messages and content—and those messages often have great influence because of their level of consumer advocacy. This concept also applies to the private sector: When brand marketers give consumers compelling social media tools that allow them to spread their enthusiasm for a particular brand, they can reach a significant amount of people on the marketer's behalf.

3. Brand/Campaign Engagement

One of the distinguishing characteristics of Web 2.0 social media is the way it allows users to interact with other people and various forms of media content.

As mentioned above, many of the 2008 presidential nominees have personal microsite pages on the leading social networks MySpace and Facebook. These interactive environments allow voters to become engaged in politics by posting comments, learning about other voters' enthusiasm for the candidate, and associating themselves with the candidate by adding them to their network of online friends.

The importance of providing voters with interactive social-media environments has clearly been taken to heart by Barack Obama's campaign. His ambitious Web 2.0 strategy includes a first-of-its-kind social network called MyBarackObama.com, which is similar to popular "friend-oriented" social networks. This online community allows users to create profiles, blog about the candidate and his viewpoints, send and receive messages with fellow supporters, and more.

This marketing strategy effectively brings both current and prospective Obama supporters together in an influential Web 2.0 environment that is controlled by the Obama campaign.

The Obama social network serves as a great example for brand marketers, who can develop their own brand-hosted Web 2.0 communities to give their customers a place to express their experiences with a brand and a community of consumers with which to share them.

* * *

Politicians have learned from decades of consumer marketing practices. In the last few years, the private sector has introduced the political realm to the power of Web 2.0 social-media marketing.

In today's hypercompetitive election, fueled by multimillion-dollar campaign budgets, politicians are heeding the lessons from the private sector and leveraging various social-media resources and tools to influence voters.

Marketers who are looking to dive into social-media marketing can in turn learn from the political realm's creative and successful applications of this new marketing strategy and should pay close attention to Web 2.0 social-media politics over the next eight months leading up to the presidential election.



Robert Hogeboom is a principal at BBP Marketing Group. He is the founder & managing director of nonprofit social-networking platform MyNonprofit.com and a part of the founding team of social-networking site Piczo.com. Reach him at Robert@BBP-Group.com.

Social Networking: If You Let Them Build It, They Will Come—The Story of Best Buy's BlueShirt Nation

by Albert Maruggi

Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt were about to become popular guys in the 140,000-employee Best Buy corporation. They led the effort to build an internal social-networking site.

Their objective was to obtain more information about customer likes and dislikes through the blue-shirt-wearing sales associates on the floor of the sprawling entertainment and appliance retail giant. This information would help Best Buy create more effective advertising. "If you get a decent problem to solve, you can make decent advertising," Koelling said.

Bendt conducted in-person interviews with sales associates, a process that produced great information but was time-consuming and not very scalable.

The mission: replicate the real-world experience online, make it scalable, and dig up more good information.

Koelling, a self-described journalist with little technology development knowledge, started working with an open-source content management tool called Drupal (www.drupal.org).

Little did they know that their internal social network (not too long ago, these were called intranets) for communication and collaboration was about to give them a whole lot more than they originally desired. One of the lessons learned: When you provide a forum for conversation, be ready for anything.

Listen, Provide, Learn

Getting contributions from your community and encouraging interaction are critical elements of an internal corporate Web site. If people don't use the site, you have a corporate platform that, according to Bendt, "sucks."

After the first version of the BlueShirt Nation social platform, as it was called, Bendt and Koelling were told by a handful of beta users that it needed some work. Koelling was a bit more descriptive: "They said it was ugly, dry, and it's boring."

Bendt said they learned that if you want people to use a "social" site, you need to be open to their participation in building the site. You see, social sites are not about the people or company that builds the site; they are completely about the people who are intended to use them.

Those users represented the Best Buy "blue shirts," usually "early twenty-somethings" who were candid about what they wanted and how the site should act. This is a generation that is cynical of marketing gimmicks and corporate "feel-good" programs and quick to share opinions with you—or with the world via YouTube.

The retail industry has a huge employee turnover rate: 40-60 percent. By incorporating user input in developing BlueShirt Nation, Best Buy was able to create a meaningful experience that is helping to reduce employee turnover: The rate for employees who use BlueShirt Nation is 8 percent.

By intently listening to the users during small-group evaluations of each early version of the site—these meetings were called "hack slams"—BlueShirt Nation became an open, fun, welcoming environment that stimulated discussion.

"We found out real fast that our idea of how this was going to be structured, coming out of a one-to-many-paradigm, got turned upside down," Koelling said of these "hack slams." "It wasn't about what we thought it was going to be about. It was about what the users thought it was going to be about. They basically told us what they wanted, 'and if you want us to participate, build it like this.'"

That shift in mindset—away from being a corporate-mandated, brand-dictated site to being more reflection of the users' desires—is the most significant change since the first iteration of BlueShirt Nation.

Some 18,000 Best Buy employees now use the online community, ranging from on-the-floor sales associates to senior management. Bendt says floor employees have developed a direct connection with managers and corporate leaders that would have been impossible without BlueShirt Nation.

Innovative Leaders and a Culture Willing to Act

Both Bendt and Koelling agreed that they benefited from managers who allowed them to experiment. Sure, the two had an objective, but they could not predict the outcome and the type of reception their concept would receive. They needed a management team willing to discover the innovation potential of their employees by building a forum for open communications.

In the case of BlueShirt Nation, Bendt and Koelling did obtain information about customers' likes and dislikes, but a greater benefit was the interaction among employees that is helping improve Best Buy.

The open forum of BlueShirt Nation also produced conversations about improvements to the employee email policies, the customer service process, and the employee discount program. Communication is fluid.

Having a corporate culture willing to listen and make changes is a major ingredient to achieving companywide success.

"People feeling that they are being listened to is key to getting more users," Bendt said.

Early site design changes that made the site more casual and conversational, raised by BlueShirt Nation users early on in the process, stimulated greater participation on the network.

Koelling says he believes corporate culture will change slightly after employees gain access to communication with each other, especially up and down the corporate ladder. The hierarchical structure in a corporation is useful, but this new media shifts the center of ownership somewhat toward the users. The result of such movement is greater buy-in of the overall objectives of the company.

"Corporations are in business to make money," Koelling said. "However, there are a lot of voices out there that could contribute to that end goal...that might not get a chance to participate in the typical hierarchical structure."

The practices developed at BlueShirt Nation can be replicated at other companies, internally and externally. The following actions are cornerstones to most social-network strategies:

Allow intended users to contribute to building and shaping the platform.
Demonstrate active listening to the conversations.
Create a flexible process to evaluate ideas and implement those that gain a consensus.
Identify a management champion who provides time and flexibility to innovate.


Albert Maruggi is a senior fellow of the Society for New Communications Research and host of the Marketing Edge podcast (www.providentpartners.net/blog). He is also founder and president of PR and social-media consulting firm Provident Partners. Reach him via amaruggi@providentpartners.net.

18 Strategies and Tools for Naming Your Business or Product

by Scott Trimble

Naming. Doesn't matter what you're naming—your product, your business, your Web site or heck, even your child (which happens to be my current project), your choice is important. Below, you'll find a flock of ideas, strategies, and tools to make your name discovery a little easier.

Through researching and writing this article, I tried to make name discovery a point-by-point affair. I've also noticed that most, if not all, of the articles and reports I've read over the years do the same. Start here, end there, do this and don't do that.

Lemme tell you, though, that it's not nearly that cut and dry. The process of naming is anything but linear.

There is NO chronological set of events that promise to lead you to naming perfection.

There is NO set of naming principles you must adhere to.


Sure, there are certain guidelines and ideas that are good to keep in mind, but I promise you that there's an exception to every rule. (Successfully branded, wildly popular—and, by all standards, bad—names abound.)

The process of naming also has its idiosyncrasies. Sometimes you'll set out to name a new product and the perfect name will be hanging there, right out in front of you, just waiting to be snatched out of thin air. Other times, you'll mull for days, agonizing over the details of your product, entering in hundreds or thousands of options to your registrar with nothing sounding "just" right.

So, given the interesting and often inconsistent nature of naming, I've decided to divide this article into "considerations." That is, instead of giving you a chronological chart of action points from which you'll undoubtedly stray, or assigning you a set of naming commandments that are anything but set in stone, I've outlined a collection of methods, ideas and strategies that you should simply consider.

(You'll find the more basic ideas in the beginning with more meaty stuff following.) So, let's get the fast ones out of the way first…

Consider this: The basic stuff

-Be easy to pronounce and spell.
-Make it memorable.
-Don't pigeonhole yourself (being too specific in the naming of your company or product [example: Dave's 256k Flash Drives Inc. or Portland Flooring Inc.] can hinder growth later).
-Go easy on the numbers.
-Don't use names that could have a negative connotation in other languages (Baka Software Inc. sounds OK in the US, but won't fly in Japan).
-Stay away from negative connotations.
-Make sure your name doesn't alienate any group (race, religion, etc.)
-Search for existing trademarks on potential names.
-Make sure that the domain is available or purchasable in the aftermarket. Use your favorite registrar or use a bulk domain checker (I've outlined one below).

Consider this: Domain availability

Domain availability is possibly the biggest hang-up to ever happen to naming. Sure, you can come up with great potential names, but can you come up with great potential domains that are available?

I won't spend much time on this because it's pretty simple. If you're creating a name for a product or business that will require a .com, be patient, keep trying, and you'll start to get a feel for names that are more likely to be available than others. I've also listed some tools below that will help immensely with this.

Consider this: Focused brainstorming

Every book out there prescribes brainstorming. However, instead of just sitting back and trying to come up with ANY words that describe your business, focus your brainstorming to answering a set of questions.


Answer each by making as long of a list or words and phrases as you possibly can. Remember, the longer and more abstract your list, the better off you'll be. So go wild...

-What does your product do?
-What does your industry do, what's its purpose?
-What is your product's benefit to the consumer?
-What will happen for them?
-What will they get?
-What are the "ingredients" that go into your product or service?
-How are you different from the competition?
-What makes you unique?
-What's the lingo in your industry? What are the expressions that are unique to your offering and business?
-Add your own to the list, as you see fit.

Consider this: Synonym search

It's pretty simple, really. Take every one of the words you brainstormed above and plug them into a thesaurus, like Thesaurus.com (thesaurus.reference.com). Run through each entry, keeping the words you like, trashing the ones you don't. Put these into a new list, paying attention to name possibilities.

Consider this: Word combining + a cool name-combining tool

After you've done some focused brainstorming and/or a synonym search, try word combining. Pop ALL of your words into a word combiner like My Tool (www.my-tool.com/word-domain/word-picker/), tweak its settings to reflect what you want it to show, and combine.

Depending on how many words you put into the system, you may get a massive list returned to you. To weed through them quickly, you can then hit the button at the bottom and check each domain for availability.

Consider this: Name and word lists to get your juices flowing

Plenty of great product, company, and Web site names have their roots in other, irrelevant names. Look up "list of ______" in Google and you'll get more than you can handle:

-Geologic periods
-Fruit or food names
-Types of dinosaurs
-Kinds of rocks
-Latin or Greek roots
-Place names
-Historical figure names
-Zoological names
-Botanical names
-Math or Engineering terms
-Astronomical terms
-Animal, fish, or bug names
-Think about this abstractly also. If your product is new and unique, what foods or plants have fresh connotations? And so on.

Consider this: Punning and plays on words

I just tried a new beer recently specifically because of its name. It was called Tricerahops, a double IPA made by Ninkasi Brewery. Quite a beer, incidentally. But check out how you can create a name like that.

Cruise your focused brainstorm and synonym lists for words that describe/define your product. In this beer example, we might find hops—one of the main ingredients in beer. Then, we can look through lists of animals, foods, places, etc and see if we get any good combinations, where the words fit seamlessly. In this case, they chose the dinosaur name "Triceratops" and simply changed one letter. Here's an even easier way of doing it…

Consider this: Groovy word tool

Use this More Words tool (www.morewords.com) and search for any words that contain ____ . You can search for anything—search for words that contain "top," or words that have a double "e." Virtually any sound or letter combo you want to find in a word, this site will do it for you.

Consider this: Meaningful or not?

(Example: Dave's Rocket Repair Inc. has meaning, Simble Inc. does not.)

Some say creating a name with built-in meaning is a must—new companies or products need to seem familiar and safe. Others say non-meaningful names are the best— the name is completely yours, free of meaning (which you can then define); plus, newly coined word names connote innovation.

The jury, as they say, is out. Some things to keep in mind though:

Newly coined words CAN convey meaning. The most championed of these may be Acura, which was formed from the morpheme "Acu" and finishing with suffix "ra." Acu as a root connotes accuracy or precision, which fits nicely for a luxury car line.

The creator of the Acura name (Ira Bachrach of NameLabs) is purported to have a list of thousands of combinable morphemes. I, as of yet, have not found such a list. If you happen to run across one, I'd love to see it. : )

Consider this: A truly killer naming tool

Word Lab (www.wordlab.com) and specifically this page: Word Lab Tools (www.wordlab.com/tools/t_index.cfm).

This Web site I consider to be one of the single most powerful naming tools out there. With an absolutely massive list of company names, a morpheme name creator, name builder, and so on, this site is the juggernaut of idea generators. Every time I'm naming something new, I use this site.

Consider this: Metaphorical naming (some powerful stuff)

I call it metaphorical or lateral naming; but no matter what you call it, it's a branch from the focused brainstorm, and often the coolest names come from this method. It'll take a more creative, abstract frame of mind, so whatever you need to do to break out of your linear comfort zone, do it.

So, after you've changed into your tie dye and stared at your Led Zeppelin poster for a while, grab your focused brainstorm. Here we're going to center on the question "What does your product, business or industry do?" You're going to sequentially take each of the words and phrases you came up with, and come up with other things in life that do these things too.

Let me repeat (or rewrite, as it were) that. You're going to take what your business does, and come up with other things in life that do the same thing. Make a list of everything you come up with. Here is an example:

I have a software company, and our newest product's function is to copy files (pretty high-tech, I know). So I ask, "What else in life copies things?"

-A copier—too logical.
-A cell—might work, but a little "out there."
-A mime—A HA!
-Why not call the new software product... Mime.

Here's another:

My marketing company helps its clients voices get heard above the competition's. So, what else gets voices heard or makes things louder?

-A bullhorn.
-A volume dial.
-An Amplifier—A HA!
-Why not call the company Amplify Interactive (happens to be a real company here in Portland). Volume Media wouldn't be bad, either.

Consider this: Misspellings

Misspellings of commonly used words can get you in familiarity's proverbial backdoor. Example—netflix.com. It's familiar, short, and you instantly know what they do. Though, if looking for an available domain, you'll have to use some fancy combinations because common misspellings are already registered.

Consider this: Industry lingo

Each industry has its lingo, and you may have noticed that many taglines come from such lingo... or, more distinctly, from words and expressions that are used by your consumers.

For example, I've just developed the perfect fish hook. It never, and I mean never, lets a fish go. A common expression in fishing when you feel a fish take your bait is "Fish on." This great expression, combined with something else, might make a nice tagline for my fail-safe hook. How about "Fish on ... never off."

Consider this: Ask your friends, but...

Ask your friends' opinions, but take them with a grain of salt. First of all, your pool of test subjects is probably pretty small, leaving your results (ratio of yays to nays) with little accuracy.

Second, consider whether your friends are in your target market. If they're not, they may not "get" a name that might be perfect for your market.

Finally, people in general side with what's familiar. Finding your Web site, seeing an advertisement, or having a friend suggest your product can have the unique ability of making your product's name sound good. The name or names that you ask your friends to grade won't have the benefit of such an advantage.

Consider this: How is the competition named? What are the trends?

I've made the mistake (like an idiot, I might add) of not checking my competition first, before creating a name, only to find out the name I created is just like a competitor's. Time wasted.

Now, my general rule is to find out how my competitors are naming themselves and simply be different. Stepping out of the box is always a bit of a gamble, so make sure you're different in what will be seen as a positive way.

Consider this: Name rhyming

Rhymed names are memorable and can work, as long as they're not too cute or overboard. Rhyme Zone (www.rhymezone.com) is fantastic for finding words that rhyme. More Words can also be good for this.

Consider this: Web 2.0 name generators

I'll be honest, they're generally crap. I've used this one, Web 2.0 Name Generator (benjamin.hu/w2namegen.php), but found that, for the most part, they return relatively useless gibberish.

If you have a few extra minutes, though, try popping some of your synonyms into the interface and see what it comes up with. At the very least, it might give you some ideas and get your wheels turning.

Consider this: Don't put too much stock in your name

They're certainly important, but naming can also be over-emphasized. There are plenty of highly successful businesses and products out there with bad names. So, take your naming, like your friends' opinions, with a grain of salt. And, as with everything, the more you stress about obtaining perfection, the less likely you'll come up with that killer name that seamlessly fits your offering.



Scott Trimble is a managing partner of Halfagain LLC, a Portland, Oregon based search and affiliate marketing software producer. He blogs at www.halfagain.com.

Six Sneaky SEO Techniques That Will Get Web Sites Banned

by Dharmesh Shah

All businesses—large and small, new and old—have one common denominator: They want to be found by customers, partners, and prospects; increase leads and brand awareness; and, ultimately, generate new business opportunities.

One of the most effective ways to do all that is search engine optimization (SEO).

There are many efficient SEO techniques to optimize your business's Web site, and then there are nefarious methods, which not only ruin your reputation and get your site banned from Google but also have legal ramifications.

There is an ongoing debate among experts as to what is considered "white hat" vs. "black hat" SEO. In my mind, the big difference is that "white hat" SEO helps the search engines deliver quality results to users by working within existing guidelines. On the other hand, "black hat" SEO involves exploiting current limitations in search engine algorithms.


Experts often disagree on what is considered a "black hat" technique and what is considered a "white hat" technique. My argument is that it doesn't matter what you call them; certain techniques are simply bad ideas and should be avoided by most (if not all) marketers.

The reasons vary, but have a common pattern: Avoid SEO practices that rely on tricking search engines and distorting search results. Here's my rule of thumb: If a given technique could be detected by a human doing a "manual review," then it's probably a bad idea.

It's safe to assume that if you try to exploit a hole in the algorithm today, your advantage is going to be temporary. More importantly, you carry a significant risk of having your Web site penalized or banned. The reward, even if there is one—and, in most cases, there isn't—is usually not worth it.

The 6 Sneaky SEO Techniques Marketers Should Avoid

1. Link Farms

There's general consensus that one of the strongest influences on search rankings is the number and quality of inbound links to a Web page. A link farm is a group of Web sites created for the primary purpose of creating a high number of links to a given Web site. These links are not "real" (in terms of signaling the quality of the site they link to), and so they are trying distort search engine results.

2. Automated Content Generation/Duplication

Search engines like content. They particularly like frequently updated content. Unfortunately, creating unique content takes time and energy. To try to trigger search engine spiders to index more pages from a Web site, and do so more frequently, some may try to auto-generate content or scrape Web content from other sites and republish it.

All businesses—large and small, new and old—have one common denominator: They want to be found by customers, partners, and prospects; increase leads and brand awareness; and, ultimately, generate new business opportunities.

One of the most effective ways to do all that is search engine optimization (SEO).

There are many efficient SEO techniques to optimize your business's Web site, and then there are nefarious methods, which not only ruin your reputation and get your site banned from Google but also have legal ramifications.

There is an ongoing debate among experts as to what is considered "white hat" vs. "black hat" SEO. In my mind, the big difference is that "white hat" SEO helps the search engines deliver quality results to users by working within existing guidelines. On the other hand, "black hat" SEO involves exploiting current limitations in search engine algorithms.

Article continues below
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Experts often disagree on what is considered a "black hat" technique and what is considered a "white hat" technique. My argument is that it doesn't matter what you call them; certain techniques are simply bad ideas and should be avoided by most (if not all) marketers.

The reasons vary, but have a common pattern: Avoid SEO practices that rely on tricking search engines and distorting search results. Here's my rule of thumb: If a given technique could be detected by a human doing a "manual review," then it's probably a bad idea.

It's safe to assume that if you try to exploit a hole in the algorithm today, your advantage is going to be temporary. More importantly, you carry a significant risk of having your Web site penalized or banned. The reward, even if there is one—and, in most cases, there isn't—is usually not worth it.

The 6 Sneaky SEO Techniques Marketers Should Avoid

1. Link Farms

There's general consensus that one of the strongest influences on search rankings is the number and quality of inbound links to a Web page. A link farm is a group of Web sites created for the primary purpose of creating a high number of links to a given Web site. These links are not "real" (in terms of signaling the quality of the site they link to), and so they are trying distort search engine results.

2. Automated Content Generation/Duplication

Search engines like content. They particularly like frequently updated content. Unfortunately, creating unique content takes time and energy. To try to trigger search engine spiders to index more pages from a Web site, and do so more frequently, some may try to auto-generate content or scrape Web content from other sites and republish it.

All businesses—large and small, new and old—have one common denominator: They want to be found by customers, partners, and prospects; increase leads and brand awareness; and, ultimately, generate new business opportunities.

One of the most effective ways to do all that is search engine optimization (SEO).

There are many efficient SEO techniques to optimize your business's Web site, and then there are nefarious methods, which not only ruin your reputation and get your site banned from Google but also have legal ramifications.

There is an ongoing debate among experts as to what is considered "white hat" vs. "black hat" SEO. In my mind, the big difference is that "white hat" SEO helps the search engines deliver quality results to users by working within existing guidelines. On the other hand, "black hat" SEO involves exploiting current limitations in search engine algorithms.

Article continues below
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Experts often disagree on what is considered a "black hat" technique and what is considered a "white hat" technique. My argument is that it doesn't matter what you call them; certain techniques are simply bad ideas and should be avoided by most (if not all) marketers.

The reasons vary, but have a common pattern: Avoid SEO practices that rely on tricking search engines and distorting search results. Here's my rule of thumb: If a given technique could be detected by a human doing a "manual review," then it's probably a bad idea.

It's safe to assume that if you try to exploit a hole in the algorithm today, your advantage is going to be temporary. More importantly, you carry a significant risk of having your Web site penalized or banned. The reward, even if there is one—and, in most cases, there isn't—is usually not worth it.

The 6 Sneaky SEO Techniques Marketers Should Avoid

1. Link Farms

There's general consensus that one of the strongest influences on search rankings is the number and quality of inbound links to a Web page. A link farm is a group of Web sites created for the primary purpose of creating a high number of links to a given Web site. These links are not "real" (in terms of signaling the quality of the site they link to), and so they are trying distort search engine results.

2. Automated Content Generation/Duplication

Search engines like content. They particularly like frequently updated content. Unfortunately, creating unique content takes time and energy. To try to trigger search engine spiders to index more pages from a Web site, and do so more frequently, some may try to auto-generate content or scrape Web content from other sites and republish it.

This technique often goes hand in hand with link farms (because if you're creating thousands of sites, you need some content to put on them in order to get the search engines to index them and for the links to matter).

Google has gotten very good at determining what is "natural" content vs. content that is computer-generated gibberish with no value. As for duplicating content on other Web sites without permission, this is often in violation of copyright laws, and it's unethical.

3. Keyword Stuffing

This involves over-populating certain portions of a Web page with repeated occurrences of a given keyword in the hopes of influencing search engine results. Search engines caught on to this trick many years ago, yet it remains popular for some reason.

4. Cloaking

This practice involves delivering different Web site content to the search engine spiders than is delivered to human users. The usual motivation for this is to send the search engine crawlers content for ranking on a certain term—but to send different content to real users.

It's pretty easy for the search engines to detect this. If you're suspected of using cloaking, it's easy for someone (like a Google employee) to simply visit your Web site as a human and check whether you're cloaking. This technique, when discovered, is one of the most reliable ways to get a site banned.

5. Hidden Text

This technique "hides" text on the Web page that search spiders will index (for ranking purposes), but is invisible to a human. The simplest example is some variation of white text on a white background.

Based on how sophisticated you want to get, it could be based on something as simple as tags in the HTML, CSS stylings or Javascript that changes the page dynamically. Regardless of how sophisticated the approach, it is still going to be detected at some point.

6. Doorway/Gateway Pages

This practice is similar to the cloaking technique. Instead of dynamically delivering different content to spiders, a doorway page involves getting a given page (the "doorway page") to rank well in the search engines, but then redirecting human users to a different page. Clearly, this is not in the interests of end-users as they don't get the content they would have expected.

It's Not Smart to Try to Outsmart Google Engineers

Just about all of these questionable tactics presume that the search engines will not detect them. They are based on exploiting current (and perhaps non-existent) limitations of search engine algorithms.

I'd argue that Google has a lot at stake and has lots of really smart engineers working on the algorithm. An Internet strategy that is predicated on outsmarting Google is not a smart strategy.

For most marketers, the time and energy spent on trying to take these shortcuts is much better invested in two things:

Improving their Web site so that it deserves to be ranked highly because it has valuable, differentiated content
Helping the search engines discover that content for the benefit of users
Working with search engines instead of trying to exploit them is the only approach that works in the long term.



Dharmesh Shah is the chief software architect and cofounder of internet marketing company HubSpot (www.hubspot.com). He authors OnStartups.com, an online community and blog for entrepreneurs, and writes for HubSpot's blog (blog.hubspot.com).

Seven Steps to a Successful Marketing Blog

by Connie Reece

How do you start from scratch yet create a top-ranked marketing blog in less than a year?

If I had anything close to a foolproof formula, I'd be making an infomercial right now rather than writing this article. Nevertheless, I can share some tips from my own experience to help you achieve success with your marketing blog.

1. Read

Before you draw up a plan for your blog, do your homework. Find and read the top marketing bloggers (see Mack Collier's Top 25 list). Don't overlook new voices, however; they may have valuable ideas and a fresh perspective.

It's important to listen before jumping into a conversation—and that's what blogging is all about. Often the back-and-forth discussion that takes place in the comments is the most valuable part of a blog post.


2. Comment

I did nothing but read blogs and bookmark them for about a month before I moved on to Step 2, which is to join the conversation by leaving comments on the blogs that you read.

Rather than a bland "nice post" type of comment, write something that adds to the conversation. Why was the subject important to you? How can you use the information?

Now, when you leave your comment, here's where marketing magic begins. Most blogs have three boxes for personal information to identify the commenter:

-First, your name. Unless you are widely known by a nickname or pseudonym, always use your real name.

-The second piece of information requested is your email address; it will not be visible to readers but lets the author know that you're a real person, not a bot or spammer.

-The third blank to fill out is the URL of your Web site or blog, if you have one. When you add a URL in this space, it creates a hyperlink to your site, and when a reader mouses over your name, your blog title is displayed.

Because you've automatically generated a way for readers to find you, it's considered poor etiquette to use the comment space of someone else's blog for self-promotion. So resist the urge to hijack the comments; make your point, and use no more than one hyperlink. Most blog filters are defaulted to flag as spam any comment with two or more hyperlinks.

3. Write

When you first start writing a blog, it takes a while to find your voice. The best advice I can give you? Don't try to be Mack Collier or Drew McLellan or John Moore—or anybody else.

It's good to quote from industry leaders, but take time to formulate your opinions and express them in your own words. And don't write a lengthy essay that draws final conclusions, which has the effect of shutting off dialogue.

Learn to ask for comments in your post, and phrase them in a way that invites response.

4. Respond

When visitors comment on your blog, follow up with an appropriate response in the comment section. There's a fine line between dominating the conversation and keeping it going, so let several comments accumulate before you address them in the same reply.

Remember that commenters may not revisit your blog to see your reply, although this has been made much easier with new tools that allow RSS or email feeds for individual comments. Toby Bloomberg taught me an early lesson about responding to new commenters: She sent a short email thanking me for the comment and introducing herself. What a nice surprise for this brand-new blogger to get a personal email from the Diva! It started a conversation that has continued to this day.

5. Converse

A blog is not your only venue for interaction with readers and thought leaders. Take the conversation to another forum—a microblogging tool like Twitter, for example, or Facebook. More than 900 people follow me on Twitter, which provides many opportunities for interesting or helpful conversations. When I send a "tweet" with a link to a blog post, I always see a spike in traffic.

I do not treat Twitter, however, as just another marketing channel. Users who send only links and never engage with others will not find Twitter valuable.

6. Connect

Look for ways to extend the conversation to face-to-face meetings with other bloggers: Attend conferences, for example, or invite a local blogger to coffee. These connections will invigorate you and help you become better known in the marketing blogger community. When you visit the blog of a personal connection, it's like catching up with an old friend.

7. Rinse & Repeat

Don't rest on your laurels. Blogging is a long-term commitment, and you need to be aware of that—and prepared for it—going in. A writing schedule, or even an editorial calendar, can be a helpful tool to keep you producing fresh content on a timely basis. Set aside time each day to read and comment on other blogs.

Bonus Round

Be prepared for serendipity. You never know where the connections you make online will lead. For example, an offhand remark by online friend Cathleen Rittereiser inspired me to start a breast cancer fundraising project called the Frozen Pea Fund, which came to the attention of writer Craig Colgan, who wound up quoting me in a story published in the Washington Post, and that led to... well, I'll have to get back to you.



Connie Reece is executive director of Social Media Club international and a conversational-marketing specialist. She blogs at Every Dot Connects (everydotconnects.com) and microblogs at Twitter (twitter.com/conniereece).

Affiliates, Make The Most Money With Niche Markets

by Andrew Gowans

The following article is one of a series of articles which focus on Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing. All of the articles are based on real experiences and research done over twenty years as a personal and business coach. They are also written in response to questions which I have been asked as well as address common challenges that people have with affiliate marketing, article marketing, internet marketing or running an online business in general. I sincerely hope that you find the following information of value. One idea, one tip, one clue can make all the difference.

Affiliates, Make The Most Money With Niche Markets

Affiliate marketing and working with niche markets is the way to go today if you are young and eager to make a lot of money. I'm not saying that affiliate marketers never have to work a single day in their lives and just rake in the cash while sitting out by the pool, but there are tremendous perks to this job.

Do you hate going to work every day? Commuting, whether by car or mass transit, is an absolute bore. The hours you spend every week commuting are lost hours that you will never get back before you die. So why not choose something better?

The best thing about affiliate marketing is the freedom to work in a relaxing environment. The "office" could be your home desk, the kitchen table or, why not?, a table by the pool. Every day is "casual Friday" and all your tools are concentrated in the computer.

No paperwork to shift around from one desk to another. And the earnings are on par with the setting. The more effort you're willing to put in building a maintaining a nice website, the more money will come in every day. If this isn't a good deal, then I don't know what a good deal could be.

Some people think that affiliate marketing is too much work and that splashing some AdSense ads on a page is far easier. It might be so, but how much money can you get out of AdSense? Two or three dollars a day? Come on, that's not money but loose change.

Affiliate marketing may be a bit harder than AdSense, but this is where people actually spend money. If you play with the big boys, you could make as much as $175 out of every sale. That's the equivalent of 58.3 days of AdSense at $3 per day you can make in one day.

========SIDEBAR========
Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing in general isn't as easy as many would have us believe. I fully understand (through my own experiences) that it is a lot easier said than done. However, you are here, right now, because you have a desire to improve your business, grow your business, and be more successful. These articles are here with the sole intention of helping you to make the whole process a lot easier.
======END SIDEBAR======

What many people don't realize is that the global economy is going through a huge spending period. Across the world people are willing to pay good money for all kinds of products and the Internet has made it easier than ever to spend money. eCommerce has made it possible for people to buy things they had never had access to before.

Orders pour in and products and services move across countries because people can search the Internet for answers to their problems and are willing to pay for solutions, regardless or where they come from.

It's like a river of money moving across the planet and you can become one of those who help connect the buyers with vendors and cash in commission while never leaving their armchairs. The gap between offer and demand is huge nowadays because there are far more people with money out there than there are people who sell things.

The key is to find products that are underrepresented, highly demanded and pay high. Until now affiliate information packages do not address this. Many of the marketing programs out there are about re-selling the program you have just purchased.

Although there are affiliates making money without a website by referring people directly to the merchants' sales pages. there are two serious pitfalls with this approach. Firstly, if no real preselling has been done and the merchant's sales page is less than convincing, the chance of making a sale is greatly reduced.

Secondly, the merchant has just been handed the opportunity to make follow-up sales directly and not through an affiliate program.

Take control and keep control.


About the Author

Making money online or from home are some of the most sought after subjects on the internet. "Making You Richer" is our complete guide to building online wealth, so you can easily convert thousands of searches every month into real sales.

Excellent Benefits + Dedicated Support = Your Success

Let us help you to get started right now

Affiliates, How Responsive Is Your Email Marketing?

by Andrew Gowans

The following article is one of a series of articles which focus on Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing. All of the articles are based on real experiences and research done over twenty years as a personal and business coach. They are also written in response to questions which I have been asked as well as address common challenges that people have with affiliate marketing, article marketing, internet marketing or running an online business in general. I sincerely hope that you find the following information of value. One idea, one tip, one clue can make all the difference.

Affiliates, How Responsive Is Your Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a powerful way to promote products. It does not matter whether it is your sponsor's products and services or your own. You will still find this form of marketing very effective.

Your email marketing will begin with your opt-in list. This can easily be built by offering a free newsletter about your industry to your website visitors. You place a subscription box on your website that will capture names and email addresses of your subscribers.

You can also be extra careful and make this a double opt-in, meaning that the subscriber must confirm their subscription before they join your list.

With the plethora of free giveaway sites, we are faced with a two edge sword - the advantage is that if you have a product or service to add to the giveaway, this is another great way to add subscribers - the disadvantage is that you can also attract the freebie hunters who will either enter a spurious email address or will never have any intention of buying from you.

This is why savvie marketers will always use a double opt-in.

Once you have built a good sized list you can place small ads for your product in your newsletter and can even start an announcement list for those who are looking for new products, tools and opportunities.

Email marketing can take several forms.

1. There is of course your free newsletter, which will have a couple of ads, as mentioned above.

2. Then there is information please mailer, which can help you close many sales. You have a link on your website, or in your publication, for readers to click on, if they need more information. The mailer will be a sequence of emails that give more information about the product and a call to action at the end. These are very effective in closing sales and getting the click through to your sponsor's site.

3. You can also send special announcements to your entire list about new products and services that you think will meet their needs.

There are 2 tools you need:

1. An autoresponder 2. Email signature file

Can Spam Act: It is very important to comply with the Can Spam Act when sending email. Always give your name, company name and physical address at the bottom of your email. It is very important to provide an opt-out or unsubscribe link at the end of your email.

Spam filters: Always Spam check your email messages before you send them out.

Much of email marketing can be put on auto pilot and prescheduled with your autoresponder. It is a very cost effective and highly effective form of marketing.

========SIDEBAR========
Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing in general isn't as easy as many would have us believe. I fully understand (through my own experiences) that it is a lot easier said than done. However, you are here, right now, because you have a desire to improve your business, grow your business, and be more successful. These articles are here with the sole intention of helping you to make the whole process a lot easier.
======END SIDEBAR======

In summary, a way to improve your profits

Email marketing is still a powerful form of promotion. However, we all know that few purchase on the first point of contact and that's why autoresponders are so good and save a lot of time and effort. A short series of email messages can be set up easily and scheduled to be sent over a period of time.

* Your actual messages should be in HTML and text, as there are many email clients who still do not accept HTML.

* Use an autoresponder to mail out your messages to save your time.

* Spam check your mail before you send it out so that you can get by the Spam filters and ISP blocks. Good autoresponders will sometimes provide you with a Spam checker.

* Always include your email signature file in every email you send out.

* Be compliant with the Can Spam Laws and include your physical address and name in every email. Also do not forget to provide an unsubscribe link when advertising to your lists.

* You can use short articles and information about a product to send to potential customers and clients to help you presell the benefits and then close the sale.

Your email signature file: You should not make it more than 5 lines. It should include; your name, your company name, a free offer like your free newsletter, and of course your URL.

With these points in mind you will be able to make a successful and effective email campaign, which will help you to close more deals and make more sales.

NOW is the time!

O.K. you have read the article. Now is the time for action. Without action, this article adds no value whatsoever to your online success. But remember, without action, you cannot blame this online marketing article or any article for that matter. So, take action NOW.

Even if only one piece of advice, one piece of information, one tip makes a difference, then the whole article has been worth it for all of us.

NOW is the time!


About the Author

Making money online or from home are some of the most sought after subjects on the internet. "Making You Richer" is our complete guide to building online wealth, so you can easily convert thousands of searches every month into real sales.

Excellent Benefits + Dedicated Support = Your Success

Let us help you to get started right now

Online Affiliate Programs - How to Pick The Right One

by Lance Dwayne Ronald Brown

So you are on a quest to find an internet affiliate program. You like the fact that they handle all the orders, take care of the shipping, and collect payment from the customer. All you do is market your affiliate website and get a cheque from them every month. Nice and simple. The trouble is there is just so many to choose from and they all are boasting loudly. For the most part you have to get past all the advertising which borders on lying and get to the truth behind the company. The following is a list of things to check for so you can make a wise choice.

#1 How many years has the company been in business. I wouldn't go near any company that hasn't been around for at least 10 years. Why? Because you may be signing up with a company deep in the red and about to go under. I am ashamed to say it but it has happened to me. All because I didn't check them out thoroughly. I don't understand all this hype about "pre-launch" and "get in now before we launch". To me that just means they are unproven and unstable.

#2 Personally if you can't pick up the phone and talk directly to Julie or Sally who works in the front office I would run for the hills. Flashing scam bells and whistles should go off in your head if you get an answering machine all the time. Sadly this is all too true on the internet. There should also be a physical address where the main office is that you could drive to one Sunday if you felt like it.

#3 Just how popular are their products that they market. Stay away from some new thing that the world just can't do without. Chances are the world will do without it and you will left holding the bag of purple widgets you thought everyone would buy. The more products they have the better. They should be selling things that sell well in the real world and are already well established out there.

#4 Is the company a member of the Better Business Bureau. The better the reputation they have the better you should feel. I actually know of a program out there right now (which I won't say which one it is to protect the people involved) that people haven't checked out to well because one of the co-founders of the company actually has 42 Better Business Bureau complaints against him resulting from previous scams he had run. This should kill your enthusiasm and you should not be saying things like "maybe he has turned over a new leaf" or "I'll just pretend I didn't know that and carry on in this anyway". It amazes me how people can be duped like this when they ought to just cut their losses and start over.

#5 How extensive is the back office training. Do you have a mentor who is willing to help you and is his success tied to yours. Fire off a few emails to your future mentor and see if he gives a rip or if he is just trying to sell you something and say goodbye. Personally I like this type of affiliate program because it makes everyone accountable.

#6 Watch out for affiliate companies that only take one kind of payment. The more kinds of payment they accept the better. Why? Because if that payment processor should decide they don't like XYZ affiliate company (for whatever reason they may have invented) that whole affiliate company will go down with your investment. Personally I don't like companies that won't pay you by a cheque in the mail just because I have seen this very thing happen a few times.

#7 Your future affiliate program should be a free affiliate program to join but if you do pay something you should also be able to get out after a reasonable amount of time with your money back. Another good thing to look for is a discussion forum where you can login and learn about questions or problems other affiliates are having with the program. This can be very intuitive and give you an inside view before you get too involved.

So there you have a few ways to look for an internet affiliate program. As the Beatles would say "speaking words of wisdom... let it be".


About the Author

Home Business Success Tips http://ezmakedollars.blogspot.com

How To Use Link Exchanges To Gain Affiliate Commission

by Theo Swan

Usually link exchanging is done to raise your link popularity or pagerank - But if done correctly, you may find your self with literally thousands of visitors - with one thing in common. Figure out how to USE this webtraffic; don't let it go to easily.

Exchanging links - weather you do it manually or use a service for it - is mainly to gain more link popularity - thus gaining positions in the search engines. This is perhaps the most common way of improving your page rank, and it's very effective. But, a side effect most webmasters don't think of is the traffic they attract while doing so.

If you are using a link exchange service to exchange links, you can - and should - try to take advantage of all the webmasters coming to your site and/or link pages. Most webmasters won't take the time to check out your offers, but if you can present them with an on-target banner or text-link - promoting a product directly related to webmastering, link exchanging or anything similar - you will find yourself with a new way of making affiliate commission.

The link exchange I used for this experiment - link2me - has the option of upgrading for roughly $30, making it possible to send out unlimited link exchange request. I'm not sure how many sites they have in their directory, but - trust me - it's plenty. They also have an option at every request, enabling you to present a specific link page to the recipients of your link exchange request. This is where you will have the opportunity to add well chosen affiliate links. This page should actually BE a link page, and I encourage you to actually utilize the service and exchange some links. If you ask for a link exchange with every site listed, you should find yourself with thousands of webmasters looking at your link page to evaluate if they want to accept your exchange request.

If you want to take this one step further, it is possible to further target the visitors by making several link pages - each with a more narrow advertisement, and choosing what page to show for each link request. Because you know what their site is about, you can find and add affiliate links on a detailed level.

Choosing the correct affiliate programs for this is easy, but it can take some time to get it perfected though. The best way of evaluating it is by using different affiliate programs on different link pages. Look in your web statistics and compare the traffic on each link page with the amount of sales or clicks to the affiliate programs, then choose the ones with the best conversion rate.

There are many affiliate programs with products or services for webmasters. A webmaster engaged in link exchanging is bound to be interested in others ways of improving their page rank, or other ways of marketing their site. This include services such as; Link exchanges, article submissions, directory submissions, SEO services or simple, everyday products such as web design and hosting. If you are a bit imaginative, you can probably think of many, many other subjects which might be of interest.

Using this method on every new built site will give you both page rank and possible affiliate commission, this while still building your link popularity.


About the Author

Theo Swan is writing about unusual methods of gaining affiliate commission. Read more, or find a new residual affiliate program at Affiliate Ranker

How to Choose Good Affiliate Programs

by David Cooper


Once you're ready to start promoting other people's products as an affiliate marketer, your first question might be how to choose a good affiliate program? And the answer usually is: It varies. There are many things to take into consideration in choosing an affiliate program, so we'll look at several of the most important ones here.

1. What market are you promoting to? An affiliate program which sells shoes won't be much good to you if you're selling to people who want to learn how to train their new puppy. So the first step in choosing good affiliate programs is to only choose from those which fit your particular affiliate marketing niche.

2. What are the commissions? Knowing how much commission you'll earn from one affiliate program to another can help you decide which one might be best for you. There are other things to consider besides commission levels of course, but most new affiliate marketers feel this is important. They'd rather earn 50% sales commissions instead of 35%.

3. How much actual cash do you earn? Most new affiliates don't realize this, but sometimes a high paying commission rate is not as good at it might first look when choosing an affiliate program. If you choose to promote a $50 product for 50% commissions for instance, you'll earn $25. If on the other hand, you promote a product which sells for $150... even though you're earning 35% commissions, that ends up being a cool $52.50 for you. Twice as much as that "higher" paying affiliate program.

4. What are the program's terms? It's very important to read the rules, terms of service, and all fine print for any affiliate program before you join. Unfortunately there are some affiliate programs which aren't overly kind to affiliates in their terms of service. If they only allow you to earn sales commissions when someone clicks your link for instance, but not if they come back an hour later, you might want to reconsider joining them.

5. What are the payment terms? Some affiliate programs require you to earn over $100 before they'll send your earnings to you, and others will only pay you once every three months. Many new affiliates can't afford to wait three to four months for a payment, and many also can't earn $100 or more very quickly when they're first starting out. So find out what their payment terms are before joining, and be honest with yourself about whether that payment plan will actually work for you or not.

6. How good is the sales page? This is a very important item that many new affiliate marketers are clueless about. If the sales page will not sell, then you're not likely to make much - if any - money promoting that product. A good rule of thumb is to check out the sales page first, and gauge your own reaction to it. Does it make you want to whip out your credit card and buy? If so, then it's worth at least a trial promotion period.

If the sales page makes you scratch your head, say "hmmm" or "huh?", or you find yourself constantly trying to reread a section to understand it, you may want to pass this one up. If it's not good enough to engage the reader and make them want to buy, it's not likely going to help you make affiliate sales.

Analysts: 2008 New Media Trends

by Janet Meiners

I’ve written about the trend of ad dollars going from traditional to New Media. Analysts at The Kelsey Group have a list of predictions for the new year. Since the Kelsey Group services the Yellow Pages, one of their predictions is about the Yellow Pages print version. Rather than putting money there, they predict that they’ll print and distribute less books. They’ll shift to the Internet, sometimes exclusively, to reduce costs.

“We believe the next downturn will favor media choices that are more flexible and provide a lower cost per lead than print directories, which would signal a profound shift.” Charles Laughlin, senior vice president and program director, The Kelsey Report® and managing editor, The Kelsey Group.

Other predictions see more growth in the auto and real estate industries online. They also predict more search through “specialized devices” (like cell phones?).

Here are some of the predictions from the Interactive Local Media analyst team:

More options for SEO and SEM. There will be many new start-ups focused on the auto and real estate markets. They expect MLS listings on non-Realtor.com sites.

Local advertisers will continue to use the rise of online marketing to spend less on advertising, so local search costs will go down.

Adding more video, mobile and outdoor advertising.

Although the headline talks about new media, there weren’t a lot of details. Read the press release here.

2008 Predictions for Internet Retail

by Greg Howlett

Everyone else is making predictions, so I guess I will get in on the fun too. The best thing about making predictions is that you will never remember them by the end of the year anyway. (unless I get them right, in which case I will remind you!)

Here goes…

1) Death of the little guy. This is already happening, and the trend is going to continue. It is simply going to become more and more unfeasible for small budgets to compete online. That is not to say that there will be exceptions, but you will hear about fewer and fewer of them.

If you fall into this category, you are feeling the squeeze already. Your revenue is stagnant or falling, and you are finding it harder and harder to get sales. Here is my best advice for you. Take 2008 and focus on your brand instead of revenue. Your success depends on it. Yes, it is not easy, but it will be necessary in the coming years. If you cannot sell products under your own label, focus on your company image as a whole.

2) Retailers will depend less on SEO. SEO success is not going to be easy or even possible for most retailers, and smart retailers are going to learn to get their traffic in different ways.

Ironically, moving away from search engine optimization will probably help your search engine rankings in the long run. There is little doubt in my mind that the most popular companies will eventually dominate their retail niches in search engines. If you can generate your traffic based on your brand itself (increase your popularity), you will eventually see good results in the SERPs.

3) Social marketing explosion. Online advertising continues to be inflated in most sectors, and more and more marketers will attempt to create demand with such strategies as viral campaigns and stealth marketing. Things are about to get very crowded out there in the social networks.

While a bit risky, social marketing still is more cost effective than CPC advertising. That will be the case for a while until the whole phenomenon collapses under its own weight. We are already at a point where you have to take every user review with an gigantic grain of salt. Before long, social marketing will become the new MLM model where armies of individuals parrot marketing hype online in order to make a few bucks selling something to a friend.

While I probably sound a bit cynical on this topic, I am a big believer in social/viral marketing. You should definitely explore it for your business.

4) Online fraud. Wow, these fraudsters are coming out of every where. They are getting more sophisticated all of the time. While we used to be safe in this area (what thief would steal vitamins?), we are now rejecting an amazingly high percentage of orders.

If you do not strategies to protect yourself, it is time to come up with some. Collecting the CVN number on credit cards and calling to verify customers who place large orders are two procedures that are becoming necessary.

5) Manufacturer action to control pricing. I have said many times that internet retailers can be the biggest enemy of a brand. If you own a brand that you let internet retailers sell for you, you have to be very careful.

Fortunately, in 2007, the Supreme Court has opened the door for manufacturers to better control the price their products are sold at. Many manufacturers are already implementing MAP policies with teeth in them and cutting off retailers who break the rules.

If you have built your business by piggy-backing on your competitors’ advertising while under-cutting them, you are in trouble. It is time to come up with another marketing strategy.

6) Online retail will grow X%. OK, I have no idea what X is, but I would guess less than 20%. Who cares anyway? You can grow faster than average anyway if you work hard!

So, in conclusion, it really comes down to this. I am bullish on retailers who have a strong brand and bearish on retailers who have not focused on their brand. Have a happy and prosperous 2008!

3 Ways to Spot Online Scams!

Author: Pat Watt

It is not easy to find a good and solid work at home opportunity online because the fact is that there are plenty of scams out there. You know, programs that promise you riches for a fee but at the end just take your money and disappear. What you are left with is with, no info, no money, and a big disapointment.


A lot of people go online everyday and do many different searches for 100's of topics. One of the main topics that people who are sick and tired of their jobs search for a work at home opportunity. Being bored in life is not the reason why they do this. They do this because they are probably sick and tired of working for someone else for minimum wages.

It is not easy to find a good and solid work at home opportunity online because the fact is that there are plenty of scams out there. You know, programs that promise you riches for a fee but at the end just take your money and disappear. What you are left with is with, no info, no money, and a big disapointment.

As long as there are people willing and wanting to spend money on a new program that they think will get them home full time or even part time, there will always be people online who would not mind scamming those honest people who just want to make a decent income online.

Here are some things to look for if you are searching for a legitimate program to make money online:

1. Fake testimonials

Nothing gains trust faster and better than a testimonial on a sales website. Any webmaster can design their own website in anyway that they like it and put fake testimonials on it to make it appear that their product and service is the best out there.

So how do you know that a testimonial is a fake or not? Here are some pointers:

If a website has an audio or video testimonial, then that should give you a hint that they are very real and that the program is worth to join.

If a testimonial has a picture of the person attached to it, Another thing that you can do is to check the picture itself. Many testimonials show a picture of the person who submitted it. If that photo looks like a professional studio picture, then it is pretty much close to being a fake one. Any webmaster can go online and get any picture of anyone that they find. It is that easy.

A good way to find out that the program is good is by looking if people who leave their testimonials, also have a link to their own website. When you see this, you know that the testimonials are for real.

2. Certification sites and their seals

Certification logos to the BBB, the TRUSTe Privacy Program, HonestEOnline, I-Cop, and others help to find if a program is honest or not. If you go to a program that you like and see any of these certification logos, you can allow yourself to get some sense of assurance that you can trust it. You also need to make sure that you move your mouse over the certification seal and click on it. If you are not able to click on it, and it does not open up to a new page, you can then know that the website owner is stealing the images without paying for the service.

3. Online forums

Another way to find if a particular program is good or not is by going to a work at home forum and see if this program is any good. You can usually find info about a program by going to any of the search engines and do a search for it. What you will find is lots of info and feedbacks about the program.

Now, if you find that 90 is negative, you can be assured that the program is good. The reason why I am saying this is because some people, when they join an honest program, think that magic will happen as soon as they pay for the program. They think that they can just do nothing and still make money. When they see that no money comes in, they instantly bash the program and say bad things about it everywhere online.

About Author

Pat Watt is the owner of www.workbizfromhom.com and www.workathomeonlinejobs.info. Her sites are geared for people who are looking for a legitimate and honest work at home opportunity and/or an online business.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-pat-watt-8072.html

4 Techniques To Sell A Site With No Traffic

Author: Robert Thomson

This article demonstrates 4 techniques on how to sell websites with no traffic.

As more and more Internet users are coming online to generate passive income, they start to look into websites that could help them to create passive streams of income either through commissions, user clicks or page impressions. Internet Entrepreneurs are now starting to build or acquire potential sites and flip them over to the buyers for a nice profit.

Although traffic is the key area when most people are considering when buying a website, other criteria are also important for the site to run and stay profitable in a long run. This article will help you to sell your site if you do not have much traffic flow.

The first technique is to mention how easy it is to maintain and run the site after the ownership transfer. An ideal site would be able to update its content automatically and using unique and fresh content. Some Webmasters use RSS feeds to dynamically load their sites with fresh content so that search engine will index their sites more often. Most buyers will be more than happy to buy a site that does not require them to write content and maintain. It is highly advisable not to have a site that contains 100% RSS feeds as this will not yield good results in the search engine rankings.

Another useful technique is to stress on the earning capabilities of your site. All website buyers are looking for an easy way to generate passive streams of income. For example, I normally incorporate Google Adsense, ClickBank and Amazon products review in my site and make sure that the new owner can easily change the affiliate id respectively. This is a very effective method that most buyers do not mind paying for.

The third technique is the ease of transfer. Most website buyers are not technically trained and hence, some may not even know how to install a database on a web server. It is always easy to sell a site that does not require a database and the buyer will appreciate it as they may resell these sites in future as well. If the site you are selling includes database operations, you may need to provide support after the deal to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

The last technique will assure the buyers that your site will proof worthy after the deal. This require you to have one or two profit generating sites with the same model of the sites that you are selling. When selling your new sites, quote the examples that you are now generating passive income from your old sites and show proof when necessary.

The above techniques are extremely powerful especially when you combine them with excellent sales pitch.

About Author

KC TAN is an Internet Entrepreneur and author of the book, The Essential Guide For Forum Entrepreneurs where he shows how to create and sell a website using forums for more than $200 in half a day. He also also recommends Free CSS layouts and web site analytics for all Webmasters.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

Search Marketing 101

A behind-the-scenes look at 2007's most essential internet marketing strategy

By Derek Gehl

How do you look for information? You search the internet, right? If so, you're not alone. According to Marketing Sherpa, almost 134 million people in the U.S. regularly use search engines when looking for information online. Of that number, 63 percent look only at the first page of results--at most.

And if you want your site to be there, you need to put a family of strategies called search marketing--a catch-all term for search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising--to work for your business.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO encompasses the strategies for earning top rankings in free search engines. These are called "organic" or "natural" listings. You can actually direct the way your site's listed--and improve your ranking--by giving the search engines what they’re looking for.

The goal is to optimize your site so search engines will consider it relevant. Then, they’ll place your site in the top results when people are searching for your product or service. Here are some key SEO strategies:

-Find the hottest keywords for your market. This is the starting point for any search marketing campaign.


-Plug keywords into the right locations in your copy and code. Your website is full of hot spots search engine spiders check regularly for keywords. Put your keywords in the headlines, subheads and body copy of your web pages. In your code, use them in anchor text, alt text, title tags, image tags and meta tags. But use them sparingly: The old strategy of loading up your meta tags with keywords doesn’t work anymore.


-Use keywords that relate directly to your content. If you sprinkle keywords like "guaranteed weight loss" through your site that sells shoes, search engines will ignore you. Your keywords will work best if they reflect what your site is about.


-Keep the spiders coming back with frequent new content. The more fresh, relevant content they find, the higher the search engine spiders are likely to rank your site. Keep all the copy on your pages current, including any changes or updates to your business or products. And archive your newsletters or bulletins on your site. A blog or forum also keeps people heading back for daily updates and discussion.


-Fine-tune your keyword density. Make sure you integrate your keywords as naturally as possible into your copy. You won't keep your visitors' attention if the text on your site is just a jumbled bunch of keywords. Aim for keyword density of 4 to 6 percent.


-Collect links from other sites that are considered reputable and relevant. Natural, relevant inbound links are search engine gold. Focus your strategy on requesting one-way links from sites with high natural rankings in search engines. Also, put out "link bait"--quality content that contains a link back to your site. Distributing free articles and press releases is a great way to get quality inbound links. Learn more on this subject in "Write a Keyword-Rich Article to Increase Site Traffic."

And don't forget the power of social networking. By taking part in online communities or uploading your video to a site like YouTube, you can drive new traffic to your website and get new sites linking to yours.


-Use a site map to boost your ranking in Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live Search. Site maps help spiders find their way through all your pages. And with the new sitemapsformatting protocol, the three search titans are giving site owners more clues than ever about how to help index their sites.

SEO should be at the core of your overall internet marketing strategy. It's one of the most inexpensive and effective approaches available. In fact, much of what you can do to optimize your site for the organic search engines is totally free.

However, it can be slow. When starting out, you'll probably have to wait before you show up in search results. So here’s something that'll get you targeted traffic faster.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Do a search on Google or Yahoo!, and you'll notice a different type of listings set around the organic results. These "sponsored results" are pay-per-click ads that appear when people search using the keywords in the ads. PPC has some tremendous advantages for online businesses:

-PPC ads show up immediately. You can drive traffic to your site right away, even if you haven't been indexed by search engines yet.


-You only pay for results. No matter how many times your ad is displayed, you pay only when someone clicks on it. And by watching your results carefully, you can determine how well each ad is converting and if it's worth continuing.


It's a great testing tool. With PPC, you can run several ads simultaneously, allowing you to see very quickly which ones work best. Test your keywords this way and use the best ones on your site to boost your organic search results.

In fact, you can use PPC to test everything from your product offerings and price points to your ad headlines and sales copy. Read "How to Attract Visitors to Your Site" for more PPC information.

With a combination of PPC and SEO you can make sure your target market will find you. No other set of strategies offers you so much scope as search marketing. You can dramatically improve your search engine rankings and direct quality, targeted traffic to your website--often without spending a single dime.

A lot of the techniques here are basic, but some techniques come and go. What worked last year may fizzle this year. And discovering a great new search marketing trick could put you far ahead of the competition.

So have the basics covered, but also try new techniques and strategies. With ongoing search marketing, you'll be where your market can find you--front and center in the search results.


Derek Gehl is Entrepreneur.com's "E-Business" columnist and the CEO of the Internet Marketing Center, an internet marketing firm that has helped thousands of people learn to start and run their own online businesses.IMC hosts a new Search Marketing Lab Forum, where members have their strategy questions answered by search marketing specialists.

It's Not Too Late to Get Your Business on MySpace

Feel like you're a bit behind the social networking trend? You can still make it work for your business with these simple steps.

By Al Lautenslager

If you still think social networking sites are just for teens and college students who want to display their personal lives online, think again. Social networking sites also make great marketing tools. If you choose one that caters to your target demographic, you can set up a profile, attract prospective customers by offering interesting content and encourage people to go to your website or storefront. And in the spirit of guerrilla marketing, the cost is next to nothing.

One great way to start finding new prospects is by targeting your local area. MySpace, for instance, allows you to target zip codes. This powerful tool resembles what many businesses do in higher-cost direct marketing campaigns. You can go from having no contacts to a full list just by inserting a zip code or geographical radius specification.

Once you identify target contacts, invite them to enter your circle of networking friends. On MySpace, these contacts are known as MySpace friends and show up on your MySpace home page. Your new friends can be repeatedly contacted in a variety of ways, including bulleting posts, event invites and personal messages. Repetition is the key to any marketing. Doing it at no cost will impact your bottom line in a positive way.


But before you even start adding friends, work on your MySpace profile, which is very customizable. If you don't know how to spruce it up to your liking, you can hire a web designer who can help give your page its own look and add elements like music and video. You should also secure your own MySpace domain name (myspace.com/mycompany).


Your profile page gives you ample opportunity to feature products and services, awards you've won, specials you offer and general communication to prospects and customers. The same rules apply as for any other marketing: You still have to get attention, keep the interest of the visitor and motivate them to take some type of action, which includes contacting you or visiting your website.


You may also want to create multiple profiles for your business. You can create one for the whole company, feature key people or create a fictional character--think the Burger King--that can help market your business. You'll have the chance to reach more people and figure out what they best respond to. Just make sure you have the time to maintain your pages; you don't want to become a deadbeat business on these sites, and if your content isn't updated regularly, your network will lose interest.


Another benefit of social networks is that they encourage individuals to express their own viewpoints, opinions and ideas, making them a great place to do market research, including surveys. You can offer incentives to members for completing surveys, and you already have your members' basic demographic information to split them up into study groups.


Community involvement, if done right, is infectious. Better yet, it builds trust and confidence, which are the primary reasons people buy from you.


Al Lautenslager is the "Guerrilla Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He's also the principle of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His two latest books,Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and The Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing are available at www.entrepreneurpress.com.

Why You Should Encourage Online Product Reviews

Online reviews by your customers can turn browsers into buyers.

By Melissa Campanelli | Entrepreneur Magazine

What do customers think of your products? Let them tell other shoppers by posting their comments on your website. As plenty of e-tailers have discovered, online reviews by happy customers carry more weight with other buyers than most forms of marketing communication.

"The more clutter we get in traditional media, the more consumers are talking to each other," says Peter Kim, a senior analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Tom Cox of Golfballs.com is a believer. "There [are] lots of great reasons to have reviews," says the 38-year-old co-founder and CEO of the $7.5 million business. "People who are shopping love to leave reviews. They provide relevant content for both readers and search engines."

The Lafayette, Louisiana, online retailer of golf equipment decided to add reviews to its site last year. Giving customers the opportunity to speak their minds has paid off so far. "Customers who have left reviews have purchased 58 percent more golf equipment than customers who haven't," says Cox. What's more, customers who leave reviews have a higher average transaction size and a greater lifetime value than nonreviewers.

Managing all those comments can get tricky at times. "Our customer service folks usually catch [inappropriate reviews] and clean [them] up," says Cox. "But if someone leaves a legitimate review, even if it's bad, we leave it."

A number of companies offer tools to help you get started: PowerReviews offers a free outsourced solution. Bazaarvoice's hosted and managed solution, which starts at $2,000 a month, monitors reviews and updates them regularly. The Prospero CommunityCM platform lets you manage online reviews yourself for about $395 a month.

Sam Decker, vice president of marketing and products at Bazaarvoice, has these tips for making reviews work.

1. Encourage customers to talk. "A simple gift certificate offered to customers to share new opinions can increase review volume 500 percent to 800 percent in a matter of weeks," says Decker.

2. Have them log in. "This best practice ensures that reviewers are invested in sharing their opinions [and] increases the credibility of the community," says Decker. "It also makes it easier to moderate and analyze the community."

3. Use customer comments in your marketing. Decker suggests you use average rating icons in ads and catalogs, or repurpose review text as copy for marketing collateral.


Melissa Campanelli is a marketing and technology writer in New York City.

Marketing with a Microsite

Looking for new markets? A microsite could help you reach them.

By Melissa Campanelli | Entrepreneur Magazine

Gerald Prolman launched OrganicBouquet.com in 2003 to sell sustainably grown flowers that are freshly picked and then gift-wrapped. But as the company grew, he needed a better way to meet the increasing demand from florists, event planners and other whole-salers. So in June, Prolman launched a microsite (www.organicbouquetwholesale.com) to make it easier for these customers to place orders.

A microsite lets you focus on a specific purpose, such as selling clearance or discounted items, selling products to businesses (vs. consumers), promoting new merchandise, or trying out a new product line. Sometimes the design and navigation of a microsite differs from its parent site. "[Unlike consumers], florists shop by variety and color, so the site is set up to help florists find what they need quickly," says Prolman, 46, who projects 2006 sales of up to $5 million for his San Rafael, California, company.

So why didn't Prolman just launch a separate section on his existing website to focus on wholesalers? Simple: to prevent consumers or future competitors from having easy access to the customized pricing available to wholesale customers. "The pricing is tailor-made for each customer based on volume," says Prolman. "Once approved as a wholesale account, they will be given access to the site."

Michael Parker, co-founder and director of marketing at Gravitate Design Studio, a web development and marketing company in Vancouver, Washington, offers the following advice for entrepreneurs thinking of launching a microsite:

Consider the costs.
Building a microsite costs essentially the same amount as setting up a traditional website--from $2,500 to $50,000 or more. Keep in mind, though, that a microsite may require additional employees. (To date, Prolman has added six.) "Maintaining another site--even a microsite--takes a lot of work," says Parker, who suggests evaluating whether the same results could be achieved using your current web infrastructure.

Take your brand strategy into account.
If you sell products with two totally different focuses or brand identities, "then you're a good candidate for a microsite," says Parker.

Know your search strategy.
Some companies create many microsites that point to the main site in an effort to rank high on search engines, says Parker. Others prefer to have a larger site with a lot of updated content. Before moving forward, check with your marketing department or the company handling your search marketing programs.

Melissa Campanelli is a marketing and technology writer in New York City

Rich Media for Your Website

Wow customers by adding rich media elements to your website.

By Melissa Campanelli | Entrepreneur Magazine

Now that most of your customers have broadband, your site should offer rich media features such as zoom, virtual e-catalogs and dynamic color-swatching. “It’s basically a must-have for many retailers, especially those where touch and feel are critical to product conversion,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, a senior analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Anyone in this space who doesn’t have features such as zoom and alternative views is seen as being really behind.”

A host of companies offer low-cost tools that make it easy to add rich media to your site. Virtual Iris, for one, sells software for enhancing pictures, e-mails and websites with next-generation rich media elements. Prices range from free (for basic use of the company’s website) to monthly licensing fees of several thousand dollars for downloadable enterprise desktop products.

Another company, ActivePoint, offers contextual e-catalogs and reporting tools for e-commerce. The company’s Easy-Flip E-Catalogue starts at $65 per page with links; hosting is charged based on traffic. Meanwhile, ActivePoint’s TX5 system creates interactive online presentations that incorporate rich media elements and guide customers through a website, helping them find the product they want even if they don’t know its exact name. The base price for TX5 is $5,000 per system or about $900 per month, depending on usage.

The TX5 system helped entrepreneur Sebastian Harrison solve a problem: Customers had trouble navigating the hundreds of pages of his website. His Playa del Ray, California, business, Cellular Abroad, sells myriad international phone plans so customers can avoid expensive roaming rates. “Before TX5, consumers would call and ask where to begin on our 800-page site, or they would get frustrated and leave the site,” says Harrison, 41, who expects more than $2.5 million in sales this year.

Sheila Dahlgren, senior vice president of marketing and communication at Scene7, a Novato, California, provider of rich media software and solutions, offers the following advice on using rich media.

1. High-resolution imagery produces high-quality results. Delivering the best online shopping experience possible means making sure all your content is consistent and of the best quality.

2. Invest in rich media technology that can grow with your business. Make sure your rich media vendor can scale to allow you to leverage your rich media across all products and pages, including the home page, thumbnail pages, product pages, shopping cart and so on.

3. Hook buyers with visuals. Visual merchandising is a proven method for increasing conversion rates. Maximize your rich media investment by using dynamically served imagery to not only upsell and cross-sell additional products, but also showcase items in your customers’ shopping carts, on compare pages, in search results and more.

MelissaCampanelli is a marketing and technology writer in New York City.

Transform Your Website Into a Sales Powerhouse

With the growing rate of internet shoppers, make sure you design your site with the customer in mind.

By Mitch Meyerson and Mary Eule Scarborough

This article has been excerpted from Mastering Online Marketing by Mitch Meyerson and Mary Eule Scarborough, available from Entrepreneur Press.

There's never been a better time to take advantage of the expansive opportunities for online business development and growth that the internet affords. According to a Juniper Research study, the number of U.S. internet shoppers will grow at an average rate of 12 percent per year through 2010, resulting in more than $144 billion in online sales.

These positive forecasts should be music to the ears of any aspiring e-commerce entrepreneur. But there's more to building a thriving online business than getting your site up. There are some very important things you need to know first.

Adapt Strategic Marketing for Sustainable Online Success
While online businesses are unique in many ways, your e-commerce site is merely a tool that you will use to help you achieve your personal and professional goals. Therefore, you should develop yours using the same sound, time-tested, and well-thought-out business methodologies that companies have used for generations. Yes, the internet is relatively new, but good business skills have been around for thousands of years.

Design and Navigation: Make Your Website Dynamic and Visitor-Friendly
Your website's appearance and ease of navigation are a direct reflection of you, your company, and your products and can literally make or break your business. That's why it's vitally important that you do everything in your power to ensure that your website is welcoming and easy to read and use.

Dynamic Web Copy: Get People to Respond
Since you're building an e-commerce site that will offer exceptional products, you must be able to effectively converse with your prospects and customers and talk to them using language that is relevant and comfortable. That's why your first task is to candidly evaluate your own writing skills. Ask yourself where you fit, and be ruthlessly honest--the success of your website depends upon it.

Even though your copy should be honest and simple it can still be exciting! Turn on your imagination and spice it up with controversy, anecdotes, colorful figures of speech, power words or phrases and powerful headlines.

Traffic Conversion: Increase Sales and List Building
Traffic conversion is a committed process for building relationships and rapport with your targeted audience; it helps visitors to know, like, and trust you. When done correctly, it provides the opportunity for online marketers to achieve their ultimate objective of acquiring and retaining loyal and profitable customers.

Since you can't improve what you don't measure you should be asking yourself: How many visitors come to my website? How many visitors opt in to my e-mail list? Hoe many people click on the buy buttons? What is my visitor value?

In order to optimize your website so your prospects and customers will be compelled to opt in to your mailing list; learn more about your products and/or services and feel comfortable purchasing from you, you need to make your website professional looking, eye-catching and well-written. To improve opt-in conversions, use attention-grabbing graphics, make sure your opt-in box is positioned "above the fold," make an irresistible offer and include a privacy statement.

Automation: Increase E-Commerce Profits
In addition to being the most effective time-saving tools available, automation programs are an internet marketer's best friend, hands down. These software gems allow you to reap the benefits of work you've already completed, over and over again. Simply said, there are so many benefits to automation programs that if you're serious about growing and sustaining a profitable online business, you'd be foolish to ignore them.

Multimedia: Increase Your Impact using Audio, Video, and Conferencing
The benefits for including customer-centric multimedia elements on your website are so forceful and undeniable that failing to do so is a huge mistake. You'll receive many paybacks when you add audio and/or video elements to your e-commerce site. But before beginning, keep in mind that multimedia content has to be delivered in the way your audience wants it. It must be available 24/7, on demand and two-way.

Web Audio
There are so many ways to use the web audio effectively. You can use audio to let your visitors hear recorded testimonials from happy customers, greet them warmly and enthusiastically, help alleviate and lingering doubts would-be customers may have by reassuring them that purchasing from you is essentially risk free and enhance e-courses.

Podcasts
Podcasting combines the ease of blogging with the fun of hosting your very own radio or TV show.

Web Video
Web videos afford you--or someone else--the opportunity to combine words, tone, body language, and facial expressions to convey meaningful information about you, your company, and your products and services. Let's face it; some of us should just not be in front of a camera for a variety of reasons. If you choose to avoid the camera, you can still do such things as:

-Make someone else the star.
-Do a voice-over narration.
-Create a slide show.
-Demonstrate a product or showcase a service.

Use Video to Increase Revenues: YouTube
Fueled by the Web's 2.0 social interaction concept and technological advances, novices and experts alike are adding their own videos to share ideas, entertain, demonstrate products, connect with others, and much more. And since access to the site is free and uploading a video is simple, it's a wonderful vehicle for practicing and honing your video skills.

Taking Your Video Viral
One of the most affordable (it's free!) and effective ways to materially increase your opt-in conversions is by taking your video viral--in other words, letting others help you spread the word to their friends, family members, associates, mailing lists, and so forth.

Video Blogging
Blogs are wonderful alternatives, or additions to, more traditional websites because they can be up and running quickly, usually in a matter of minutes; anyone can use their professional-looking templates without any prior design and/or navigation experience or expertise; they're inexpensive, dynamic, and fresh, and since new content is added regularly and often, the search engines love them.

Teleconferencing and Web Conferencing
Teleconferences and teleseminars represent wonderful, cost-effective alternatives to in-person meetings and classes. Additionally, they are

-Convenient. They can be scheduled at the last minute and participants can call in from anywhere.
-Efficient. Important information can be delivered to groups of people effectively, affordably, and quickly.
-Profitable. You can sell your wisdom, knowledge, or advice by creating your own teleseminar.

Traffic Strategies: Get More Visitors to Your Site
With a bit of typing and a simple click of a mouse, millions of people all over the world go to search engines (e.g., Google, MSN, Yahoo!, AOL, AskJeeves, Dogpile, etc.) to hunt for specific products, services, information and/or opportunities. And since the vast majority of online sales begin with search engines, they are an extremely valuable resource for any e-commerce business. People who are searching naturally assume that the sites listed first--particularly those on the first page--are the best, and that's where they click. The closer your site appears to the top of the list, the better.

Optimize Your Website
In order for search engines to find you (and deem you relevant) you'll need to include your most powerful keywords in various places on your website--your copy, headings, anchor and footer text, and alongside photos and graphics. Use unique page titles and meta tags, and focus on your most important keywords one at a time. Use search-friendly design and navigation techniques. Make sure it is easy for search engines (and more importantly, your visitors) to find their way from one of your web pages to any other via internal links. So, in addition to choosing the most relevant keywords you'll also want to make sure that you overdeliver valuable content; your prospects will love you for it, and so will the search engines!

Web 2.0: The Key to Using Social Media Effectively
Web 2.0 is an online movement that encourages users to participate in the fresh, interactive nature of the internet by using widely available, less expensive, and more mature state-of-the-art technologies.

Some of the many ways you can use Web 2.0 technology and its people-oriented culture to enhance your online business include:

-Getting products to market faster.
-Reducing risk. Obtain fast, real-time data on prospects and customers, trends, and products that will help you make more informed decisions.
-Building and maintaining positive relationships.
-Changing and adding content, test offers, and copy and obtain relevant information. Use RSS syndication feeds to help you stay informed, become more efficient, and conduct testing.
-Engaging in interactive conversations with the public.
-Conducting real-time online video meetings.
-Monitoring your word-of-mouth buzz.
-Using "mashups" to create, update, or bundle products.
-Attracting more targeted traffic to your website.
-Using tags.
-Getting information (and respond to it) the way you want.

Mitch Meyerson has been a visionary and bestselling author and consultant for more than 20 years. He created the much acclaimed Guerrilla Marketing Coaching Program as well as other landmark internet programs including the Product Factory and Online Web Traffic School. He can be reached at MitchMeyerson.com

Mary Eule Scarborough is a former Fortune 500 marketing executive, independent marketing consultant, and also co-author of The Procrastinator's Guide to Marketing, available from Entrepreneur Press. She regularly writes business and marketing articles for many online publications as well as for her own website, StrategicMarketingAdvisors.com.

5 Tips for Writing Quick-Read Copy

Want to keep your audience's attention? Here's how to keep it short.

By John Williams

Click here. Buy now. Free trial offer. The world of advertising is full of short and snappy copy promising instant gratification. After all, most prospects simply don't have time to read thoroughly. They skim. They glance. But if you're betting they'll wade through long paragraphs of narrative copy, it's time to adjust your expectations. Your copywriting must be clear, compelling and to the point.

These days, the best copy is served a la carte, allowing readers to sample one message here, taste another message there. Which leads us to the most important rule in writing copy that sells: Make it "digestible." Rely on headlines, subheads, captions and bullet points--short snippets of copy with key nuggets. Long blocks of copy tend to overwhelm readers. If they snooze, you lose.

Here are five easy rules for writing copy for skimmers, scanners and at-a-glancers:

1. Match your copy to your visual (photo or illustration). Virtually all of us look before we read. If prospects see an interesting photograph, you've caught their eye long enough to at least coax them toward a corresponding headline or subhead. The message in your headline should always be the most important, preferably the key benefit of your product or service. If you use smaller inset photos, add short captions beneath them. Mix it up by italicizing the font in the caption; this essentially "tricks" the eye into seeing something different than more narrative copy. Try to embed a key message or two in the caption. Whatever you do, though, keep the copy block short.

2. Display your strongest message "above the fold." Prioritizing your messages may be one of the most challenging aspects of writing copy for your business. That's because you probably know your product or service inside and out and have so much to say. Just keep in mind that most consumers will only remember one thing at best about your product after reading your ad or e-mail. In fact, if you can get them to recall one benefit or feature and connect it to your specific brand, you've hit a home run.

So make sure you carry that main message in a headline and reinforce it throughout the rest of the ad. Also make sure to use your strongest pull in the subject line of e-mail campaigns and above the fold thereafter. (For example, online prospects should never have to scroll down on their browser to get to the meat of your message.)

3. White space makes your message stand out. It's a mistake to cram all sorts of information in your ad just because "there's room." Actually, there's not room. If a prospect's eyes are overwhelmed by large amounts of copy with nowhere to rest, nothing in your ad will get read. Most clients I've worked with in the advertising business constantly fight their tendency to overdo the copy, so be vigilant. Try to critique your promotional piece from a holistic view: If it looks too crowded, start editing.

4. Add a strong call to action at least twice. Like bookmarks, a strong and concise call to buy should be placed early in your promotional piece, as well as near the end. Be clear in how customers should contact you and always give your website address if you have one.

5. Focus on benefits, not just features. You've heard it before, but it bears repeating: People buy the sizzle, not the steak. Features are only a means to an end. What do the features of your product mean to the lives of your consumers? Will they be happier, healthier or have more leisure time? The main exception to this rule is with extremely technical audiences, who tend to be thorough readers anyway.

Finally, keep your sentences short and your style breezy, so your writing is easy to read and skim. When it comes to advertising copy, less is usually more.

John Williams is president and founder of LogoYes.com, the world’s first and largest DIY logo website. In his 25 years in advertising, he has created brand standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won numerous international awards for his design work.

Make Your Website Famous

Marketing your site on and offline can be just as important as marketing your actual product or service.

By Al Lautenslager

The question used to be, Do you have a website? Now, the more relevant question is, How do you market your website? It truly isn't a "Build it and they will come" scenario.

If people don't know about your website, they can't visit--and learn about what you have to offer. That's why marketing your website online and offline is just as important as marketing your product or service.

Promoting your site can be simpler than you think. Here are some suggestions:

Offline Marketing
Many website owners forget about the offline options for marketing. But you need to make yourself visible in the places your target market lives and that means the offline world as well.

-All marketing communication materials should emphasize your URL and entice readers to visit your site. This includes business cards, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, flyers, folders and newsletters.

-Print your web address boldly on the front side of direct mail postcards. Sometimes simply printing your URL in a large, attention-getting style will cause the recipient to turn the postcard over and read the other information you want to share with them.

-You can issue a press release announcing anything new or newsworthy on your site. Maybe you're offering a free report, a free e-course or a unique approach to the marketplace that the media will be interested in.

-On-hold messages are now very popular for directing people to a website, especially with phone systems that use automatic attendants. But live attendants can direct people to your website, too. Make sure they know what information is available and relevant for the caller.

-If you ever get the opportunity to be interviewed on the radio, make sure you find ways to drop your URL. You can say things like, "On my website, www.market-for-profits.com, I offer free marketing articles and products for sale to help grow businesses." Don't just say, "On my website ..." without mentioning the URL. This applies to any interviews you might do with a reporter, editor or producer.

-Some publications will ask you to write a guest column or a feature article related to your expertise. At the end of the column or article they'll usually let you include a few sentences related to your experience and ways to contact you. Obviously mention your website and e-mail there.

-Advertising specialties are great ways to distribute your web address. They include key chains, coffee mugs, mouse pads, pens and pencils, as well as any apparel that might carry your logo or identity.

-You can also promote your URL offline with the following: fax cover sheets, vehicles, billboards, license plate frames, Yellow Page ads, other printed ads, T-shirts, and golf balls and bags.

Online Marketing
Online marketing should be done in conjunction with the offline marketing mentioned above. Here are some ideas to get you started:

-Even though people are at your site, mention it often within the text of your web copy. This will reinforce it in the readers' minds and help with search engine optimization.

-Mention your website or include it in your signature for all news group, discussion group or forum postings.

-Ask your fusion marketing partners, board members, advisors or other business partners to mention your website on their sites.

-Use online press releases and articles just like the offline method mentioned above.

-Pay-per-click marketing

-Banner advertising on your site, as well as other related sites that your target
market visits

-Online directories

-E-mail signatures

Be creative with both your offline and online marketing. Sometimes the best marketing comes from the wild, crazy, extreme or unique ideas that your competition hasn't thought of. Remember the guy who auctioned off his forehead as advertising space for a URL, or the pregnant lady who offered her pronounced stomach for URL placement for a Super Bowl ad website? Now that's guerrilla marketing.

Al Lautenslager is the "Guerrilla Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He's also the principal of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His two latest books, Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and The Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing are available at www.entrepreneurpress.com.

Spread Your Wings Online

Flying Cart brings ease and efficiency to online retail stores.

By Justin Petruccelli

If you own a retail store and you're not selling online, you're already behind in the game. But it's not enough just to have an online store--you have to find ways to draw customers to it. That's where Madison, Wisconsin-based Flying Cart comes in.

"We don't want to be just another online store creator," founder Rishi Shah says. "We definitely want to bring our customers sales, too. That's the way they're going to stay with us." Shah says that when people start a retail website, they often forget that promoting products and bringing in the traffic is half the battle.

Before starting Flying Cart in 2007, Shah set out to create a service that would connect stores with online shoppers and recommend new items based on shoppers' previous spending habits. But as he marketed the idea to small retailers, he found that what they really needed was an easy way to create online stores.

"That's how Flying Cart was born," Shah says. "We really studied every aspect of our customers and we realized that they didn't care about the features if they weren't getting sales."

Flying Cart helps retailers bring traffic to their sites by promoting their stores on search engines like Google and on local classified ad sites like Craigslist. The company's philosophy is unorthodox but refreshingly simple--time spent creating too many bells and whistles for an online store is time taken away from making sales. Flying Cart encourages its clients to get their businesses online quickly and make up the rest as they go. Shah says the result is an online store that promotes itself.

"Within two minutes, you can have your own online store running, have your own domain name and allow your customers to pay with a credit card or PayPal," Shah says. "Get it up and running and then figure out the details later. The faster you fail, the better your next product can be. Don't waste a lot of time with a developer or a designer. Just get it out there."

But things weren't always so rosy for Shah and his partners, Brian Beerman, a college friend from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Margo Baxter, who also graduated from Wisconsin. The company suffered from its share of growing pains early on, including an online auction converter site that earned the trio an e-mail from eBay's lawyers because of its domain name. The site was later given a new generic domain name and what Shah called a scary but exciting lesson was learned.

When the redesigned version of the site launched in August of last year, 900 companies were waiting for the chance to use Flying Cart's services. Since then, the company has opened an average of 400 online stores every month and is hoping to reach 10,000 stores by the end of the year.

The next step for Flying Cart and its clients is a feature that will allow each online store to create its own network and then invite both customers and other stores to join. Member stores can also exchange links to each other's website.

"We're creating mini malls online," Shah says. "A lot of people have labeled us the MySpace of stores and shopping."

Internet Marketing Basics

by Peter DeLegge

Whether you have recently been given responsibility for getting your business on the Web or to handle a pre-existing Web site, there are some general truths (at least in this consultant's eyes) that you should strongly consider.
Do not consider the Internet simply as a place to put your brochures in electronic form. Do not make the mistake of treating the Internet as if it is simply an advertising medium. The Web has more in common with the telephone than print. It is different from traditional media in many respects. Even Internet advertising requires a different approach than off-line advertising. Exploit the Web's unique qualities to provide a richer experience for customers and prospects.

Find out what your competitors are doing on the Web. Spend a few days checking out how your competitors are using the Web. Analyze each site. How does the site help tell the world about that company's products or services; is it easy to use; is it enjoyable to use; does it add value to the company's customer service; is it integrated with the company's other marketing efforts.

Create an Internet business plan and live it. Before starting your company's Web site project, determine measurable goals and objectives for your company's site, establish milestones. Make them both qualitative and quantitative. This may sound obvious, but planning is one of the most neglected areas of corporate Web site management. Your Internet business strategy should be an extension of your company's existing business strategy and well-integrated with everything your company does off-line.

Don't be inconsistent with your off-line brand. Make sure your Web site experience is consistent with your brand image. For instance, is your brand known for superior engineering and being easy-to-use? Make sure your Web site experience is consistent. A recent study found that corporate Web site email responses are highly informal and unbranded.

Email marketing works, but be careful. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to stay in touch with customers and prospects online. It can also be effective as a direct-marketing device. My advice to B2B marketers, in most cases, do not rent email lists, build your own. Do not rent out your list. Never spam, under any circumstances. Let email subscribers know in advance how often you will send messages and what type of content they can expect. Make messages as targeted as possible; relevancy keeps people listening.

Be sure your Web site is integrated with your company's other marketing activities. Don't make the mistake some traditional companies do and create an Internet effort that is disconnected with your company's off-line efforts. Your Web site should be connected with your company's off-line efforts. This means more than throwing the company Web address in your ads.

Segment and target. Even without sophisticated personalization technology, the Web allows you to easily target your messages, making them more relevant to users. Find out who they are in the least intrusive way possible and then talk to them more personally.

Use your company's Web site to enhance customer service -- especially for prospects who may be researching. The Internet allows your company to stay in touch with its customers and provide them with answers to questions they are likely to ask. Make sure your site makes it easy for your customers to find what they want and communicate with your company. A good corporate Web site helps current customers and develops new customers too. Consider real-time online help systems.

Make your site an information resource for its target markets. Becoming a trusted resource of high quality information for your customers is of tremendous value to your business, in addition, it can help win your company free press and word-of-mouth/mouse.

Do user testing. If you have the budget, do usability testing prior to launching your Web site. Bring in an expert usability group -- don't merely rely on the company that developed your site, bring in another, unrelated usability testing firm. If you cannot afford to do formal testing with a usability group, I would recommend you bring in a usability expert and afterwards, test with several of your customers.

Care about privacy. Even though most users don't bother to read privacy policies, studies show they do care. My guess is that this will only increase over time. Make sure you have a good privacy policy and a privacy statement on your site that is easy to find and customer friendly. Build your privacy policy around your customers' concerns. When it comes to email, never send out unsolicited email (spam), it not only damages your reputation and could get you into hot water, it also has extremely low response rates.

Be ready for inquiries. Most corporate Web sites are horrible about responding to email inquiries, don't let yours be one. Also, be ready for international business inquiries, even if it means telling visitors you don't handle out of country orders.

Outsource areas your company does not have expertise. If you plan on getting real value out of your Web site, outsourcing its development to the right firm is critical. I would recommend that you find a firm with marketing experience, not just designers and computer programmers. Remember that a designer's expertise is in design, a programmer's expertise is in programming and an Internet marketer's expertise is in Internet marketing.

Keeping up with the rapid changes of Internet marketing is a full time job. Find an expert and use him or her. Concentrate your efforts on running your business or handling your professional responsibilities.

Promote Your Web site. There is a popular misconception that Web sites do not need to be promoted. Consider that some of the Web's biggest successes spend about 75% of their advertising budgets on non-Internet media. Having a Web site is like having a toll-free number that's not listed in every phone book...you need to work hard to drive visitors to your Web site. As with any other media, it costs money to make it a success. Plaster your Web site address (URL) everywhere you can -- at trade show appearances, on business cards, stationary, in ads and everywhere else you can think of.

Use Internet advertising where it makes sense. Internet advertising has been pushed as a direct-response device, but the B2B process is far more complex and longer than with B2C. Where a B2C ad may attempt to get a consumer to make a purchase, this is not realistic for high-ticket B2B items. Instead, B2B marketers should consider using Internet advertising to reach targets that regularly use the Internet at the places they often go with ads that feature things like white papers, research, Web seminars and other information that is likely to be of strong interest to prospects.

Give it away free. For B2B marketers, the Internet provides a great opportunity to provide your target markets with high quality intellectual capital that can help position your company as a thought leader in the minds of your target markets.

Continuously analyze your Web traffic and other e-metrics to learn and improve. Find out how people are getting to your site and what they're doing once they get there. Any good Web site statistics software package will tell you how many people are going to your site, what pages they're viewing, what search engines they're coming from and more. If you're using a Web development firm, make sure that they review this with you on no less than a quarterly basis. Find out what's working and what's not. Redesign your site to make it more effective for your users and for reaching your desired objectives (e.g., get leads, sales, etc.). Integrate your on-line and off-line information to provide a more complete picture of customers and prospects.

Peter De Legge is an Internet Strategy and Marketing Consultant with over 10 years of marketing and e-business experience, primarily in the business to business arena. He has held marketing, advertising and e-business strategy positions from medium size to the Fortune 250. To learn more about his services, visit his Web site at http://www.businessmarketing.net.

Are Your Forms Hurting Sales?

By Michael Regan

Have you ever filled in an online form?

Of course you have.

Was it a good experience? Probably not.

Do you think your customers experience with your online forms any better? Probably not.

One of the basic principals of marketing is 'make it easy for your customers to buy your product'. Unfortunately, too many online businesses never got that message.

The problem is three fold. First, many web designers are just to lazy to make their forms easy to use. Second, users have become accustom to bad online order forms. And, finally, many online businesses don't test the forms.

The triple threat of bad service.

How do you improve your online forms?

The first step has nothing to do with form design. Simply make sure every page has a prominent link to you purchase form. It never ceases to amaze me how many sites hide the link to the order form.

How do you make your forms more customer friendly?

Pre-fill as much information as you can. As soon as a potential customer visits your site you know, or should know where they are located. This allows you, or rather your web designer, to pre-fill items such as the country and state. This is all done with software before the form is displayed to the customer.

Take this one step further. After the customer enters their name ask them for their zip code, (or postal code if they are from Canada). Now you have their not only the country and state but also the city and street. If your web designer can't update this information 'on the fly' - find a different designer.

Once you have the form layout - test - test - test.

This doesn't have to be complicated. Ask four or five people, who have never seen the form before, to come to your business and try to complete a transaction online. (Friends or family will be fine.) Don't prompt them or answer any questions - just watch what they do. The results may surprise you.

Once you have a form that is easy to use, start looking at other ways to make it customer friendly. For example are your required fields clearly marked; do you automatically rewrite the phone number to the correct format; do you automatically check email addresses before the form is submitted; is there a calendar for entering dates.

Think of all the things that you find frustrating when you fill in an online form. Treat you customers the way you would like to be treated.

Michael Regan is head of website development and online marketing for TIMR Web Services He has more articles on marketing your business online on the TIMR website and on his blog Seo Vancouver Island

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Regan

Do You Believe That Working Online Can Give You A Substantial Income Like The Big Boys?

By Theresa Williams

Everyday thousands of us get on the net in our desire to make a living online. Everyday as we log on we say to ourselves that today is the day we will find the great affiliate business or better yet find a means of getting visitors to the one we are promoting. Maybe we can give up work and be at home with your family. Maybe we can find a way of keeping up with the mortgage in these days of hardship and insecurities.

Do you believe that working online can give you a substantial income like the big boys and girls keep saying we can? How can we play the game as the big boys and girls in the hope that we get a slice of the internet cake that we all crave so much?

Of course, we all want to work minimal hours and smile all way to the bank and in some case that is the way it turns out but not for the majority of us. It really does not matter what you are selling you need people to visit your site and have you smile all the way to the bank.

Each day we try online doing the same old thing and waiting for someone to come across our site we are losing money. We spend hours surfing the same exchanges, looking at one scam after another to see if finally we find the one thing or system that will push us up the steep ladder of success. We get discouraged and fed up but we cannot give up because we have spend money and time doing what turns out to be the same old thing.

It is time to put a stop to all that wasting of time and money and start raking in the benefits. Let me tell you some of the benefits to you from the following sites which will give you great information of how you can get out of the same old rut and start making money.

1. The Rich Jerk tells us not to waste his time, that he is a jerk, obnoxious and lazy among other things. He has made several millions over the years and will be happy to show us how if we want to learn. If we do not, he does not care he has already made his millions. The Rich Jerk have a very easy to read, clear cut, no nonsense method of marketing on the net. If we follow his plan and start to make money maybe he is not such a jerk after all.

2.Automated Cash Formula tells us how to totally eliminate the hard work to making money online and how we can easily copy his lazy, pure profit for a couple of hours easy set up as many times as you like. This formula is a simple cash generating system that works for anyone; there is no technical website to worry about, cost nothing to run and it gives you lightening fast results.

3. The Millionaire League gives you dozens of easy ways to make money online everyday. They ask the question whether we would be happy working like a deranged dog or checking our computers a couple of times a day and watch the money roll in. Well we all know what the answer is. Yes. Some of the benefits of joining the Millionaire League is the freedom for routine, cash flow into your account, working from home, no experience needed, no technical skill needed, no employees needed. You will get full 24/7 support

All of the three businesses above give you a better chance to earn a significant living online - maybe better than you have been doing to date. Taking chances with our life and wasting time money in these days of hardship is not such a good idea. Have a look at the programs there is so much to gain.

Theresa Williams is a grandmother of two and a part time farmer. She loves information, loves to impart some of her knowledge gained through life. For more info on the above article visit http://verro.bravehost.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Theresa_Williams

Website Conversion Secrets For Information Marketers

By Alan Stone

How well does your website convert visitors to buyers? How many people out of 100 visitors actually buy your product?

Some people find it difficult to convert 1% of their visitors to buyers while it's not uncommon for some marketers to convert as much as 10%

What makes some websites convert more than the others?

There are many factors that contribute to it but some of them stand out. There are basic things you need to add to your website if you want to convert a many visitors as possible.

Let's discuss a few of them.

A Strong Headline:

Research has shown that websites that with headline convert better than the ones without it. This is because a headline reveals within seconds what a visitor can gain for coming to that website.

Testimonials:

People love proofs. If you want to sell a product that will help them, they usually want to know if the product is of high quality of if the product has helped other people. Ask those that have used your products for their comments. Use the positive comments and work on the negative comments.

If your product is new with no existing user, you can give it out for free to a few people to give honest reviews. Use the positive reviews as testimonials.

Money Back Guarantee:

No one want to buy a product and get stuck with it. They want to be assured that their investment is risk free.

Put the mind of your website visitors at rest by offering a money back guarantee. Tell them that if they are not 100% satisfied, you will return their money with no questions asked.

People often believe that people will rip you off if you use this technique. While there are some rip off artists out there, the sales your money back guarantee will help you make will more than make up for the returns.

These techniques will surely work for you if you use them so go right away and make the changes on your website.

See you at the bank.

Alan Stone

Want To Discover The Shocking Diary Of How A 21 Year Old Warehouse Man Turned $50 Into $21,058 In Less Than 30 Days? Then Rush Over To http://www.AlansMoneyDiary.com for FULL Details!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alan_Stone

The 1st "8 Crucial Steps" To Begin Your Online Business Empire

By Kyle T

How to Go About Setting Up an Online Business

The best way of setting up an online business today is as follows:-

1. Choose a niche and then specialize in it. Do not think that you are going to make big bucks by selling everything under the sun (unless you are using Ebay, but even this is getting more competitive today).

2. Choose or create a product. You can either use affiliate products or create your own.

3. Probably one of the most important things to do when setting up an online business is to find a good name. It should be short, easy to remember and reflect what your business actually does. Your domain name is the name by which your online customers will remember you by. A good domain name is one that is memorable, short and easy to spell. There are many websites around offering domain names, and prices can start for less than $1.

4. Get your own website. Do not go for a free page on some affiliate site, but get your own. It is much easier to do than you think. Get some hosting (there are plenty of companies on the web today offering their services). Then buy a template system if you can not program (again take a look around the web and you will soon find plenty of companies offering web templates). Now all you have to do is start learning how to use it. However, if you are not technically minded then you will need to hire someone to handle all the technical aspects of your online business. This could include such things as building your website for you, the handling of your website hosting and the setting up of any domain names that you may require.

5. Always look for a secure and reliable host service provider. It is important that you examine the "uptime guarantee" that each service provider offers. Also, analyze the physical infrastructure of where your online business will be stored. But probably most important of all is that you should scrutinize the hosting providers "Back Up" and "Data Security" systems. This includes calculating how much time would be required to reinstall your online business if there was a complete infrastructure failure on the part of the hosting provider. This will help you to calculate the least possible loss to your business if such a situation arises.

6. Build an email list. This is important so that you are able to repeatedly talk with visitors to your site. It is important that you keep the visitors updated as to what is happening with your site. This also enables you to contact them numerous times regarding whatever offer(s) you wish to present them.

7. Look at the ways in which you will handle the payments made by your customers. If you are selling an affiliate product, then this will not be a problem as the affiliate program will handle the payments for you. However, if you are selling your own product, then you will have to set up your own payment processing system. This will be looked at more closely in another chapter of this book.

8. Look at the ways in which you will arrange for goods to be delivered to your customer if selling your own products. You must look at local courier companies, as well as the postal service and find out which will be more cost effective for sending goods to customers. Also, you will then need to decide on the pricing system for the sending of packages to your customer's. But it is important that you choose a shipping company who you know is going to be reliable. Look especially at those companies who offer an online tracking system.

If you've liked what I've had to say so far - check out my site. Watch a video on how an 18-yr-old makes $1000's/month online for FREE.

For a "Step-by-Step Video Tutorial" on this 18-yr-old makes easy money online - Click below Watch his Secret Blueprint now!

http://www.OnlineWebProfit.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kyle_T

Advanced Internet Marketing Secrets - Learn The Mindset That You Need To Have To Succeed Online

By Mark A. Abrahams

Internet marketing is really simple in nature. However, very few people succeed online. The main reason for this is that most people do not have the mindset to achieve success.

In this article I would like to go over the crucial changes that you need to make to yourself to succeed online. Let's face it the process is simple. You choose a niche, drive traffic to your website, build a list and convert those subscribers into paying customers. Now the only difference between a successful marketer and one that is not is that they do less work and also there mindset is not right.

The first step is to motivate yourself and plant the seeds of success in your mind. I suggest that you watch the dvd The Secret as it will show you how powerful the law of attraction is. If you seed the correct things in your imagination they will eventually happen. Similarly I suggest you get the book Mind Power by John Kehoe or better yet if the course is offered in your country I suggest that you go on it. You also need to have a very tough mindset to succeed with internet marketing.

You need to be very disciplined and organized. Create a daily schedule of tasks that you need to do to generate money. This could for example be writing articles to generate traffic to your squeeze pages. Creating products that you can sell online. Publishing an informative newsletter that will build trust with your subscribers. These are just a few examples of things that will actually make you money.

Finally, some days will be extremely bad and it will seem like everything is going wrong. It is on these days when you are seriously tested you need to have the entrepreneurial mindset and keep going.

Are you really interested in driving massive traffic to your website?

Here's the answer:

Secrets Of Article Marketing - Download your free ebook now.

Mark Abrahams is a full time internet marketer who has helped others to earn a living online.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_A._Abrahams

Killer Tools For Internet Marketers

By Anh Nguyet

Automation is the name of the game when it comes to Internet marketing. Even though you also have to pay attention to customer service and provide the personal touch when necessary, it's the ability to run your business on autopilot that is key.

Autoresponders are a high priority for any area that you might be marketing in. They'll let you keep in touch easily and effectively with all of the contacts generated from your site. You can be creative as well, using your autoresponder to deliver series of staged email messages.

Whether you have a site or not, consider a blog. They're hot in the search engine space and readily get listed in search results. They encourage your contacts to contribute to discussions around the service or product that you offer and they can considerably easier to update with new information. Use your autoresponder to regularly direct your contacts to your blog, for example. You can send out short emails that give a summary of the news and contain a link to the latest blog post.

Google tools deserve investigation. Google is steadily building one of the most comprehensive platforms of marketing resources on the web. You already know about AdWords and AdSense? Check out Google Analytics and Google Trends for hot information on who is visiting your site and what the market is doing. You can compare trends for the same time period in different years, understand seasonal variations and see if a particular market is fading away or taking off.

Article submitters that take the load off you for getting your articles published. Writing articles can get a good return on investment for traffic and ultimately sales - but you also have to submit them. Submittal is sometimes as long as it took to write the article in the first place. Article submitters can provide a solution.

Press release distribution. Don't neglect possibilities like these, either for online press releases or offline. Many companies have understood the potential of combining offline publicity with online activity and vice versa. Press release distribution tools on the web can point you in the right direction.

Contact Management software. The choice is varied, but it comes down to one thing: organizing your contacts and automating different tasks like preparing distribution lists and reminding you about calls and emails to be sent. Whether you use a specialist package on your PC, an online solution or the database module from Open Office, you'll be more on the ball and on the money.

Come Visit http://www.Guruspots.com Today and Let US help You Build a Fortune From Scratch or You pay NOTHING!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anh_Nguyet

How Much Choice Do Consumers Want?

It depends on the consumer.
Product line extensions. New and improved flavors. Mass customization.

Sometimes it seems like giving consumers choices is what marketing is all about. It's part of why manufacturers and service providers put so much information online for consumers.

Yet researchers at the University of Iowa recently found that people who have only a little information about a product are happier with that product than people who have more information.

"We found that once people commit to buying or consuming something, there's a kind of wishful thinking that happens and they want to like what they've bought," said Dhananjay Nayakankuppam, marketing professor at UI.

eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey and several eMarketer analysts weighed in on the idea of giving consumers more or less choices.

Ben Macklin

There is only a certain amount of information and choices a human can absorb. The choices now available to consumers in terms of broadband, voice, TV and mobile services—and their possible bundles—from a host of different providers is completely overwhelming for some.

It is all very well to say that we are now a self-serve consumer-driven market with more information for people to make more informed choices. But if the process of making a choice and the fear of making the wrong choice is greater (in terms of time, effort and emotion) than the difference in value between choices, then an increase in choices does not necessarily equate to an increase in value for the consumer.

Marketers and service providers can play an important role by giving consumers a gentle nudge to help simplify their choices.




Jeffrey Grau

One of the touted benefits of peer recommendations, such as those offered on social shopping sites, is that they help simplify consumer decision making.

The Internet is a rich source of information for learning about products, comparing them and finding where they can be purchased.

All of that consumer research, including peer recommendations, has more of an effect on store sales than Web sales, according to eMarketer analysis of US Department of Commerce data.





Lisa Phillips

So if 70% of US automotive shoppers research their purchases online before buying, does that mean 100% of them will be really ticked off within three months of the purchase? Or maybe 50% of them will be ok with what they bought, but 1% will be swayed by the US Ford TV commercials that they really wanted an Edge, not a Nissan Murano?

Realistically, people research products to either make themselves comfortable making a choice or to rationalize their primary choice. Either way they can defend it to their partners, parents, friends and siblings.




John du Pre Gauntt

Choosing among French Onion dip, blue cheese and ranch can induce consumer agony. Paradoxically, excessive choice tends to even out such rude passions in matters of the spirit.

Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, said that "difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of censor morum over each other. Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity.




Geoff Ramsey

The University of Iowa study is simply cognitive dissonance theory.

We always want to be internally consistent. If I research and choose a product, I’m expressing a view about myself. Once I’ve made the purchase, I need to rationalize that choice, in order to stay consistent.

If information gleaned post-purchase contradicts my earlier choice and point-of-view, I experience dissonance, and that doesn't feel good for my poor psyche.




Karin von Abrams

The predicament for today's shoppers is compounded by the world's complexity, and the surfeit of choice, as well as the increasingly fast pace of life, which leaves many people in a state of perceived pressure or stress much of the time.

As a result, the need to make a choice is felt as a burden.

Many of the people who instinctively try to avoid stress may also avoid prolonged research prior to purchase, and are therefore predisposed to accept their choices rather than get angry or disappointed.




Paul Verna

This study is a reminder to content owners and marketers that choice has its costs.

Before the Internet ushered in the current era of niche marketing and long-tail tactics, media companies were much more invested in making decisions about content. Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite never asked their audiences to make programming choices for them.

These days, people expect to pick the winner in American Idol, choose among different endings for a movie and put their iPods on shuffle during long car rides.

But there is still value in empowering an expert field to filter out the noise and lead people toward informed choices.




Debra Aho Williamson

A personal story: When I was getting ready for our wedding, I went with my husband to the caterer to choose a wedding cake. The caterer told me, "You can have anything you want, any flavor, any filling, any design." It was too much for me and I had a legendary breakdown right there in the caterer's office (my husband still tells the story, 14 years later).

The next day the caterer called and suggested three options. I chose one and the cake was amazing. Lesson learned: Given a few choices, I felt great and still empowered. Given infinite choice, I was paralyzed and fearful.




David Hallerman

There is a key place for multiple choices, and it goes along with a particular element of advertising.

Most brand marketers create ads to appeal to emotions, to sway and woo through images and not ideas.

However, the same marketers also create a subset of detailed advertising for their products, and these ads tend to run not in mass media (as much as they still exist) but in specialist venues.

Compare the emotion-laden car ads that run on TV with the specifications and details that often appear in car ads in Car & Driver and Motor Trend.

The same target audience that can be convinced by benefit-oriented ads can also be the same audience that wants lots of choices, and is not paralyzed by them.

Learn how online research affects consumer behavior. Read eMarketer's Multi-Channel Retailing report.

Virtual and real blur in Eve Online

By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, San Francisco

Virtual worlds are becoming increasingly rich and diverse environments with complex social and economic eco-systems. Science fiction trading game Eve Online is one of the most dynamic worlds, with its own economists helping players get to grips with the intricacies.

More than 220,000 people pay a subscription to play Eve Online, a game set in a vast universe of more than 5,000 solar systems distributed over 66 regions.

Players battle to win territories through forming corporations and creating, buying and selling products - it is a virtual microcosm of the economic world at large.

Dr Eyjo Gudmundsson is the lead economist, a virtual Alan Greenspan, who works to make sense of all the data.

He said: "Within the game I supply players with economic information so they can make decisions about their own production, what they are going to produce and how they are going to produce it.

"It's basically the same economic questions as in real life. It's about strategy and an important part about strategic decisions is logistics and having access to the resources you need to win your war.

"It's like a real war in the sense you have to plan ahead. It's about long-term planning and long-term strategy."

Every quarter Dr Gudmundsson and his team produce an economic newsletter analysing trends inside the game.

"We are looking at markets, at production and long-term trends that show the movements of the players.

"We publish basic information on price levels and production values and interesting demographic information so players can rank themselves. Just like in a real economy, you want to have a benchmark."

The newsletter goes into great detail on the trade of virtual minerals in the game and where players are travelling in the universe.

With such depth and complexity, it is hardly surprising that Eve Online attracts a good number of senior executives and business professionals.

Dr Gudmundsson said: "It's the challenge of being able to be the best at planning ahead, the one who controls a large territory, showing your skills in running a corporation that has up to 1,000 members."

He added: "It's gamers who want something other than the First Person Shooter. They are using their skills, and learning skills about business, production and management, and having fun in a very competitive environment."

The complexity of the world of Eve is also leading to collaboration between the game and real world academic institutions.

"I work with research institutes who are interested in learning from our experiences," said the economist.

"We have one project with the Helsinki Institute of Research Technology where we are looking into how to evaluate virtual economies and comparing that to other virtual worlds and moving that experience over to the real world.

"Eve is a game based on trade and there have been a couple of cases of price bubbles and it would be interesting to do a comparative study, comparing these bubbles to the real world and seeing how expectations are controlling the market at any given time."

One way that the virtual world reflects the real is in the realm of crime and fraud.

"Eve is a very competitive game and is happening in a super-capitalistic environment - corporate espionage is a very big part of the game.

"Everybody assumes there must be one spy in the ranks. There have been examples of corporate thefts, where people have earned the trust of others for months before attacking that corporation."

But the game's architects are not automatically moving to stamp out such practices.

"We are discussing this with players. To what extent should we provide protection for players."

With such emotional, temporal and financial investment in the game, Eve's players are beginning to have a larger say in its future.

A number of players will help form a Council of Stellar Management which will discuss the game's mechanics with Eve's creators.

And in keeping with the game, players will have to be elected to the group, creating a complex series of elections within the virtual world.

Dr Gudmundsson will be working with academic bodies in Iceland to look at how the voting process works. For example, does it follow rules established in the real world?

So what has he learned about how the economy of Eve works?

"I have been quite surprised by how effective the markets are. The biggest markets for the most basic products, such as minerals, are showing a very high degree of efficiency.

"Eve is a great place to learn business skills, or to sharpen business skills. Players have written to us to say that they have gone on to establish successful businesses after playing Eve."

Now's not the time to trim marketing budgets

By Deborah L. Cohen

CHICAGO (Reuters.com) -- Resist the urge! Don't trim the marketing budget.
That's the advice of strategists specializing in small- to mid-sized companies as we head into an increasingly tight economy and competition for business gets tougher.
While it's temping to view marketing dollars as discretionary - they don't go toward payroll, overhead or production - experts say now is the time smaller companies need promotional efforts most to stand out from the crowd and solidify their brands in the mind of customers who themselves are feeling the pinch of shrinking budgets.
Already there are clear signs of a knee-jerk reaction. According trade publication Advertising Age, in October, the most recent month for which data is available, U.S. ad spending fell 2.5 percent from the year-earlier period.
Instead of hacking, it's better to first ensure that your existing budget - whether spent on traditional outlays like print and television advertising, public relations and special events or newer forms of digital media and so-called guerilla marketing - is deployed as efficiently as possible.

Here's some practical advice from a few experts:
Clearly link marketing strategies to outcomes, says Sally Hodge, president of Hodge Schindler Integrated Communications in Chicago, whose accounts include an airport shuttle service, the American Association of Endodontists, a design school and a financial consulting firm.
"What's critical is not just using the right strategies for your business, but to make sure you have the metrics in place so you know these are the right strategies," she says.
Measuring promotional efforts can be as simple as asking at the point of sale how customers heard about your product or service, to tracking whether your Web traffic increases after a PR effort lands your business prominent coverage in a print article or a newscast.

Spend smarter. If you are ultimately forced to cut, having clear metrics in place will let you know where you're getting the most bang for your buck, Hodge says. And regardless of which promotional channels you use, get the best value for your marketing dollars.
Some examples: Hodge currently likes radio spots for some good bargains, but says you must understand your business and customers well enough to determine if rates and returns measure up. Permission-based Internet marketing strategies, such as e-postcards - easy to design and execute - are an effective alternative to direct mail; they save on traditional printing and postage, and can link the recipient to a special Web page about your product or offer.

Focus on existing customers, says Gary Slack, chairman and CEO of Slack Barshinger, a marketing consulting firm with offices in Chicago and San Francisco.
"Find ways that you can increase revenue with people who are already doing business with you," says Slack, whose clients span large public companies to smaller concerns, like a virtual events host and an online distributor of food equipment and replacement parts.
"When times get tough, too often companies take their eye off their existing customer base and start focusing on attracting new customers, which is usually more expensive, entails acquisition costs and has long sales or buy cycles," he says.
In order to get a larger share of the existing pie, small companies should consider ways to deepen their business relationships, such as investing in original research on behalf of a customer to help them better understand a business issue for which they can provide a solution.
Slack also recommends scheduling regular meetings to understand customers' concerns, and then responding with improvements to a product line or service to make it more valuable. Whenever possible, find out where customers are getting new information on their industry and what is influencing their purchasing decisions.
"There are some companies that look at downturns as a real opportunity to get an advantage over weaker companies in their sector," says Slack.

Enlist customer feedback, says Karen Woon, San Francisco-based director of marketing for Prophet, a brand consultancy that has offices worldwide.
"This is a great time to tap into consumers' insights and understand what really matters to them," says Woon. "Think of it as an opportunity of sorts because many of your competitors will scale back."
Give consumers a forum to provide insight on new products and services, she says, such as an area on your Web site where they can provide feedback. For its part, Prophet conducts an annual survey with both current and prospective clients dedicated to an area of content the firm is interested in learning more about. Most recently Prophet queried on the topic of innovation.
"It gives us an opportunity to learn what's on people's minds," she says.
Woon says tight budgets are a good time for the "test and learn" approach, where new marketing initiatives can be rolled out on a small scale and expanded only when they prove to be effective.
"It makes a lot of sense to try a lot of initiatives on a small scale and see if they work," she says.

Consider non-traditional methods, says Joel Warady, who runs a small marketing consulting firm in Evanston, Illinois. His clients, primarily consumer businesses with annual revenues of $50 million or less, have become adept at creating product buzz without the use of traditional marketing methods such as print advertising.
"The companies that are succeeding are the ones that are smart with their marketing dollars," says Warady. "We focus a lot of our time and efforts on line."
One such client is Peak Enterprises, a Sarasota, Florida-based maker of an oral hygiene product aimed at Gen-Xers called the Tung Brush.
The tongue cleaner has been used by contestants on talent show "American Idol" after efforts to place the product directly into the hands of the show's make-up artist. And the Tung Brush put in an appearance on the content-sharing Web site YouTube when it was incorporated into a young man's humorous quest to mark visits to 100 monuments across the United States by licking them. The product is now carried by Wal-Mart, among other retail chains.
Says Warady: "Those are the creative ideas that small companies should take advantage of."

Deborah Cohen covers small business for Reuters.com. She can be reached at smallbusinessbigissues@yahoo.com

Foreclosure Web sites expand buying audience

By Michele Gershberg

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Foreclosures were once the turf of the most aggressive investors, but these days ordinary home buyers can hunt for fire-sale U.S. house prices on a wealth of Internet sites.

Large real estate sites such as PropertyShark.com and RealtyTrac.com showcase a growing number of U.S. properties in pre-foreclosure and foreclosure, a phenomenon that is becoming far more common with the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown.

They pull together thousands of listings based on public information, adding photos or aerial images of the houses and eliminating the need to sift through court documents. In some cases, they offer phone numbers of homeowners and court dates.

In March, Yahoo Real Estate opened a comprehensive site on foreclosures together with RealtyTrac, expanding the reach of such data to its nearly 500 million global users.

"The goal for you as a buyer is to purchase a property at least 20 percent below full market value, although better deals are often possible," Yahoo's site tells the uninitiated.

Perhaps the most significant change is that ordinary home buyers are making more use of these sites, less hesitant to capitalize on the financial misfortune of others.

They will find many more opportunities, as the U.S. foreclosure rate by the end of 2007 had risen nearly 80 percent from a year earlier.

"It is what it is. I'm not going to sit here and tell you otherwise," said Bill Staniford, partner at PropertyShark. "This is a debacle going down from the top of government to the mortgage brokers. There's lots of blame to go round, but the more people in this industry there are, the better off the homeowner."

WAIT FOR THE GAVEL

Potential buyers are also getting involved earlier in the process, finding a way to speak directly to owners on notice for default rather than wait for the gavel to come down.

"Many people think about the auction when they think about foreclosure. They get fixated on it," said Staniford. "But most of the transactions are getting done before the auction."

RealtyTrac says traffic to its site has tripled to about 3 million unique visitors every month from 1 million just two years ago. It estimates as many as 40 percent of visits come from first-time home buyers rather than investors or brokers.

Yahoo Real Estate saw a fivefold increase in traffic to its foreclosure listings since it expanded the site last year.

"There are a lot of people who have been priced out of the market and they're seeing their rents go up," said Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing at RealtyTrac. "Probably until next year, the level of foreclosure activity will remain at historically high levels."

RealtyTrac is seeing increased interest in its site from overseas investors, fueled by a weak U.S. dollar. The company aims to expand its subscription U.S. listings service to foreign nationals as early as 2008, and may eventually offer foreclosure information from markets abroad.

"The challenge is that there isn't something exactly like U.S. foreclosure laws in every country," Sharga said.

Fresh data from PropertyShark shows the number of scheduled foreclosures in four large metropolitan areas -- New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and Seattle -- reached two-year highs in January. The number of foreclosures more than doubled in Miami and nearly quadrupled in Los Angeles in that time.

For Web users, a simple search shows how popular the term "foreclosure" has become, but the quality of many sites is unclear.


FLIP SIDE

Foreclosure.com this week cited more than 362,000 pre-foreclosure listings, nearly 39,000 sheriff sales and almost 281,000 bankruptcies.

ForeclosureUniversity.com aggregates news articles on the topic, while other sites give information on home auctions on a state-by-state basis.

On the flip side, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development offers advice on how to avoid foreclosure if one can't make mortgage payments. Their recommendation: Don't ignore your lender.

Buyers interested in foreclosures should be wary of everything from hidden liens on a property to navigating their first approach to an owner.

"This is not something we recommend people get into without educating themselves," Steve Schultz, director of product management at Yahoo Real Estate, told Reuters.

"There are a lot of pitfalls," Schultz said. "You may end up getting into a situation where you're going to upset a particular buyer. You're going to make a phone call and they're not really ready to get into a sales conversation."

If there is a silver lining, experts say, it's that regular home buyers may be less aggressive in the discounts they seek, offering some maneuvering room for people out of luck.

Sharga said the worst of the foreclosure growth could end by June, after a huge wave of adjustable subprime loans resets. Barring other economic upsets, the real estate market could take six more months to stabilize, he said.

"A lot of the properties in foreclosure are there for really bad financing," he said. "You're actually offering a sort of life raft for home owners in a sea of distress."

Finding a mentor via online social communities

By Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - "Lavenderblu" was a young girl when she got her first taste of domestic violence.

After suffering at the hands of her father and witnessing repeated attacks on her mother, she ended up in a violent relationship of her own before finally managing to leave and find refuge with a women's support group.

Now, at age 40, she is one of many mentors on the new social network Horsesmouth which has been set up to connect mentors with those who are looking for advice.

Launched only about a month ago, the site already has over 20,000 users and offers up mentors to discuss a wide variety of topics, form how to set up a business to how it feels to wear the Muslim hijab for the first time.

In launching the service, the site's creator, MT Rainey, set out to bring a sense of public purpose to the whole Web 2.0 phenomenon, which allows users to contribute their own content to the Internet.

"No one was creating a social network for a public benefit or for the public good," she told Reuters in an interview. "I wanted to create somewhere that was safe and somewhere that was fit for purpose, for meaningful interchanges online.

"If you've accomplished something, if you've been through something and if you've got over something, then you have wisdom," added Rainey, who previously worked in advertising.

She said that people going through a difficult process need to talk, often to someone familiar with the situation, who has been in their shoes before.

"I found that people wanted to give something back," Rainey said. "You don't have to be middle-aged or retired to feel that way."

The Horsesmouth is one of many mentoring sites to spring up recently and the phenomenon could become more important as once-powerful traditional bodies such as the church or unions start to lose their sway in certain countries.

"Physical geographic communities are breaking down and people through the Web are creating communities of interest," Rainey said.

A HELPING HAND

In the creative industries such as music, advertising, media and the arts, many are turning to the new social network set up by The Hospital Club group.

The private club opened in 2003 in a former London hospital and was based on the vision of musician Dave Stewart, who wanted a "creative melting pot" in the center of the British capital where members could give something back to the industry.

Five years on, it has also launched a social network at thehospitalclub.com, where users from those industries can post ideas, blogs and their work to communicate with others on the site.

"The key was to create a low pressure environment where people could interact with one another based on their own expertise ... and where it is acceptable to approach people to ask for assistance," said David Marrinan-Hayes, the club's online manager.

He said the site would allow those entering the industry to post profiles and examples of their work online, meaning the potential mentor would be able to make a qualified decision on whether to provide advice or not.

"Also, we often find that people ... need different pieces of advice from a number of different people," he said.

"For a musician, they could need production advice or legal advice or marketing advice, and that very often doesn't come from the same person. So three or four people could work together and we're trying to create a space to manage that whole process."

There is no charge for using Horsesmouth and TheHospitalClub, but some other mentoring sites like Imantri offer a choice as to whether you pay for the mentor or not.

Other sites offering mentors or advice include American-based score.org, micromentor.org and the business network linkedin.com.

Like Horsesmouth, Marrinan-Hayes said people were happy to help and impart their knowledge. And it can be rewarding for both sides.

"It just makes them feel good," he said. "They feel like they have something to contribute."

How mobile got its game on

By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, San Francisco

The mobile games industry has long been the poor relation of the PC and console markets, but a combination of new technology, services and investment is fuelling optimism that mainstream adoption is not too far off.

Ask anyone to name a mobile phone game and the most common response will be Snake or Tetris.

And while the classic Russian puzzler is the world's most played and downloaded mobile game it is not an accurate reflection of the industry.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week the leaders in the mobile game industry have been preaching optimism about the future.

"This is still an infant industry, but it is growing quickly and expanding fast," said Rob Tercek, chairman of GDC Mobile.

"We are looking at an industry that is a $5bn (£2.5bn) industry overall, not bad for one that didn't exist 10 years ago," he said.

Touch technology

But for developers and publishers the mobile games industry is unpredictable.

"Some companies are very profitable, many others are not," said Mr Tercek.


"Ninety percent of publishers are losing money," Michel Guillemot, head of Gameloft, the world's largest distributor of games, told the conference this week. His firm is one of the few companies to have healthy revenues - $141m (£72m) last year -and Gameloft sells two games every second.

He told BBC News that the industry was in transition as consumers waited on the next generation of devices, which are hitting the market this year.

"The launch of super high end advanced handsets will drive mobile game sales," he said.

The Nokia N Series, the Apple iPhone and Google-powered devices will bring about a revolution in mobile gaming, he said, with the power to deliver 3D gaming experiences, multiplayer games and control through touch.

"Touch screen is going to bring a revolution in the fact we are removing the interface.

"Our creators are very enthusiastic about touch; you can play games with your hands, your finger or your pencil. It is going to bring a completely new experience."

Many developers are excited about the iPhone's potential, even though Apple has made no statements about gaming on the device.

Guillaume Rosier, director of editorial marketing at Vivendi Mobile, said the iPhone's interface would be "fantastic for gaming". But the firm would not confirm or deny that it had games for the device in production.

Many expect Apple to open up the phone to game developers in the near future.

New dimension

More and more handsets are shipping with built-in graphics acceleration, giving the phones the power to deliver 3D graphics.

David Harold, of British firm Imagination Technologies, which delivers graphics acceleration technology to chip makers, said: "A lot of mobile gaming content is casual and 2D and easy to write.

"But we're enabling 3D content to run on mobile phones, comparable to a Dreamcast or PlayStation 2 in terms of performance."

Imagination Technologies is working on technology to bring the sort of graphical effects seen on PCs and latest generation consoles to mobiles by 2009.

"You can't do advanced 3D in software; it's way too demanding on the system and it would run way too slow," he said.

Developers are also learning to exploit phones to usher in a new way to control the action on a phone.

Mitri Wiberg, founder of game development firm Polarbit, said tilt control in games added a new interactive experience.

Nokia has recently opened the previously inaccessible accelerometer feature in its Nokia N95 phones to developers.

"You can do an awesome amount of things in games with tilt," said Mr Wiberg, whose firm has developed a racing title in which the car is controlled by lifting or dipping the phone.

US firm Gesturetek has developed software which uses a phone's camera to interpret how the phone is being moved; translating gestures into action.

Vincent John Vincent, president and founder of the firm, said: "Being able to do natural movements, not just hand but also full body movement is the way forward.

"It's a lot more natural with gesture and movement," he said.

The technology is embedded in phones released by NTT Docomo in Japan and allows gamers to move the phone, forward and backward, shake it, and roll the device to control action on the screen.

Console power

The mobile games industry believes it now has devices on the market which can offer gaming experiences comparable on many levels to home consoles.

Mr Guillemot said phone hardware was evolving five times as fast the home console market.

"In five years time we will have phones with the capability of home consoles of 2005," he said.

Jaako Kaidesoja, director of games at Nokia, said: "If you look at the overall phone roadmap in terms of technology you can see the graphics improvement and 3D acceleration making a difference and they are getting closer to consoles.

"But you have to remember the context of playing mobile games. We are not seeking a similar gaming experience with dedicated gaming handhelds."

Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president of markets, said:"These mobile devices when turned into computers will allow completely new genres of games to be created.

The connected presence and 24/7 nature of being able to reflect your own context can change the way games are played.

"We can mix reality with virtuality and make games where you participate time and place independent or rather time and place dependent - where you are, what you do, who are your relationships."

Mr Guillemot said mobile game developers had only "scratched the surface of what was possible."

"Whatever people say there is a market there. "We are targeting the 21st century audience. This audience is expecting to have a top quality gaming experience on their phones just like on their console at home."

Online dating pros offer tips

By Kenneth Li

NEW YORK(Reuters) - "Long walks on the beach, a passion for music and movies" just isn't going to cut it anymore in the rough and tumble world of online dating.

Struggling at finding love on the Web? Start by blaming your online dating profile, which may contain out-of-date photos, bland descriptions, or one too many white lies. Correcting these common mistakes should go a long way toward avoiding another Valentine's Day alone.

"Look around; you tell me -- how good are profiles these days," said Evan Marc Katz, dating expert and author of "I Can't Believe I'm Buying This Book: A Commonsense Guide to Successful Internet Dating." Katz has written some 500 profiles for clients on his online profile writing service, E-Cyrano.

"People, after years of doing this, they've gotten the message that they've got to do better," he said. "But most people don't know what that means."

Just ask Mark Sweeney how the wrong profile can doom dating. Sweeney, 49, a gay retired mental help aid in upstate New York who bought his first computer last year on friends' recommendations, had been out of the dating scene for seven years.

When he first put up his dating profile, he suffered through a number of bad experiences and mismatches. "People were just looking to regularly exchange with as many people as they can," he said. "They were just perverts."

Sweeney later joined Match.com, which helped him polish his image. "They can help put into words if you're not a good writer."

He said his new and improved profile helped him land a date 3-1/2 months ago with Joe, who lived 30 minutes away. They're heading to Bermuda on a cruise soon.

Still, Sweeney admits, he initially worried that he wouldn't find anyone online. "It was kind of depressing at first," he said.

LOOKING FOR LOVE?

If you're alone, you're in good company. Some 82 million adults were unmarried in the United States in 2000, or about 40 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census bureau. The unmarried adult population is projected to reach 106 million by 2010.

"There's a lot of people looking for love; they don't know what they don't know," Katz said.

Avoid being one of them by starting out with a few tips.

The profile sprucing begins with the very first line -- your user name. Make it pop, advises Gail Laguna, spokeswoman for Spark Networks, owner of sites including JDate.com, ChristianMingle.com and BlackSingles.com.

Forego generic abbreviations of your name such as JSmith101. Laguna suggested something more expressive, like Live2Laugh or WhiteWaterWarrior.

Experts also suggest that you try to be more specific in your profile. Anyone can say they love candle-lit dinners and sunsets, said Janet Siroto, the editorial director of Match.com, a division of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

"Try to replace them with things that are more specific or unique to you," she said. "If you're a great vegetable gardener, not everyone can say that. You like bluegrass music on weekends, share that."

Another pet peeve among experts: Don't bother telling prospective companions how gorgeous or fit you are. Show them with photos, which leads to the next point.

Lose the seventies get-up. If your main photo makes you look like an extra on the film "Boogie Nights" or was shot more than 12 months ago, it's too old.

Old photos, in fact, are the No. 1 shortcoming of profiles. "Photos that are old or if you're wearing an outfit you had in the 1970s, the one where you're on the dance floor. That's probably the biggest complaint," Laguna said.

Another piece of advice is to drop the bad vibes. Most people know exactly what they are not seeking, but pointing that out repels potential dates.

Instead of saying certain types need not apply -- an alcoholic who can't pay his bills, say, or old men under five-feet -- tell people what you are looking for, Katz said.

"Your job is not to stop the wrong people from writing to you but attracting the right people."

Most of all, be honest. "The reason that people are on there ... is they want to meet in person. So why waste your time not being honest?" said Thomas Enraght-Moony, chief executive of Match.com.

However, on dating sites, especially those courting users seeking longer term relationships, it doesn't help to bare it all.

Sweeney said: "I would tell people to go to a legitimate site like Match.com where they don't allow naked pictures, where you can get help with your profile."

Protecting Yourself Online with Free Web Proxy Servers

Author: Robert Thomson

In recent times, privacy online has become a big issue, making free web proxy servers a viable alternative for many web surfers. Basically, a proxy server conceals your specific Internet address to protect your anonymity online.


Protecting Yourself Online with Free Web Proxy Servers

In recent times, privacy online has become a big issue, making free web proxy servers a viable alternative for many web surfers. Basically, a proxy server conceals your specific Internet address to protect your anonymity online.

Protecting privacy online is a very real concern. For example, many people resent the idea that the government can have access to an individual's online history-- often without needing a warrant. Likewise, many companies, organizations and schools routinely monitor the online history of their computer users. And unfortunately, there are also spammers and online criminals who seek to gain personal information about web surfers for identity theft or other illegal acts.

How does a free web proxy server work?

The word "proxy" means "to go between." This is actually the simplest way of understanding what a proxy server does. Proxy servers act as a filter between your computer and the Internet. The most popular use of this technology is to provide anonymous web surfing from any location in the world.

When using a web proxy server, you are technically not connecting to the Internet; instead, you are connecting to a remote computer or server which is connected to the Internet. Therefore, you are able to surf the Internet "by proxy."

When surfing the net on a free web proxy server, your Internet browser history will reveal only that you have connected to the proxy site, not the actual web sites you have visited. Using a proxy server will also eliminate the problem of web sites depositing so-called "cookies" on your computer.

A "cookie" is a tiny information file that is left behind when you visit a particular web site online. It can contain information about the exact time of your visit, the length of time you were on the site, information about your location, IP address, operating system and other identifying characteristics. "Cookies" can even contain log on and password information, making them a potential security risk if they should fall into the wrong hands.

But using a free web proxy server completely eliminates "cookies" on your computer. Instead, the sites you visit will attempt to deposit "cookies" on the actual proxy server -- not on your computer.

For all of these reasons and more, it can be smart to use a web proxy service to surf the web, and there are many online to choose from. A simple Google or Yahoo search will reveal thousands of free web proxy servers; however, it is important to be aware that the most popular of these free services tend to run very slowly, making for a frustrating web surfing experience.

But if the free web proxy servers are too slow for your taste, there are also paid services that will provide much faster anonymous online browsing. There are many of these available, and most require either a monthly or weekly subscription fee. If protecting your identity and privacy online is a primary concern, paid proxy services can provide peace of mind for a very reasonable cost.

The Internet is a great resource, but unfortunately, it also has its share of disreputable webmasters and spammers. Using free web proxy servers is a great way to keep your private information from falling into the wrong hands.

Author: This article is the property of PXYList.com. PXYList.com provides a monitored, hand-picked list of free Web proxy servers that are guaranteed to be up and working 24/7.

About Author

You can find more information and a list of quality proxy servers at PXYList.com.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

How To Create A Successful Forum Auction

Author: Robert Thomson

This article points out several useful tips on how to start a successful auction in the niche forum that you are targeting. It also tells you how to attract clicks to your auction by putting up a good headline.


As forums are getting more and more popular for the Internet users to buy and sell products, many Internet Entrepreneurs start to put up auctions for their products such as Websites. This article highlights the critical factors that determine the success of an auction thread in a forum.

The first important factor is the right audience. In my opinion, there is no one forum that is suitable for all products. Depending on your niche, you will be able to maximize your auction results by placing in the correct forum. For example, you may want to sell a web designing related site in a graphics design or Webmasters forum instead of a general chatting board. Being said that, you should also try for new places to place your auction and you will be surprised to see unexpected results.

After deciding the places to post your auction, you should now consider the time to start your auction. In a forum, this is a critical issue especially there are times where the number of sellers far exceed the buyers. Hence, pushing down your auction listing to the subsequence pages. One great time to start your auction is on weekdays before lunch hours. Try that out to see if it fits in your forum niche.

For most products from fishing rods to intangible ones like Websites, a recommended auction period is one week. This will capture the weekend crowd and would create more exposure to different group of buyers.

As important as in other auction platforms, a catchy headline is a must if you are panning to sell your product. Headlines should be clear stating what are you selling and why must I see your listing. The main objective is to get the audience to click on your listing first at this point of time. It is also advisable to exclude your starting bid if it is at the higher margin. However, if you have a low starting bid, be sure to mention that in your headline.

There are many passive buyers who seldom buy but they always keep up with the new auctions to see how it goes. The only way to capture this new buyers is to build up trust with them. Hence, you can also look for forums that have feedback ratings enabled and this feature will help you greatly in your future auction or any other listing.

To conclude, selling your products in forums require a fair bit of experience and trust that you build up in that particular forum along the way but with the above pointers, you will have an edge over other members that just put up an auction without planning.

About Author

KC is the author of the popular book, The Essential Guide For Forum Entrepreneurs and has helped many members to sell their products and services successfully in the forums. KC also manages a free site for CSS layouts and templates. KC recommends the office feng shui site to improve your career.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

Reasons for search engine optimization

Author: Robert Thomson

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technical term for methods that are used, links to relevant search terms in the results pages of search engines to higher courts appear to be.


The topic of search engine optimization for websites, in times of increasing use of the Internet and increasing search for dienstleistenden providers on the Internet is becoming critical. In order within the World Wide Web to keep pace with the competition, is a professional SEO consultancy recommended.

For a site to the highest positions in the major search engines to consolidate, Also, the ranking of a website to optimize various conditions should be taken into account. First helps you with the advice to SEO, keywords (keywords) to match the site's content. With the help of professional Seoprograms find the SEO consultant in the wake of the search engine optimization quickly one or the other word combination, in the leading search engines often sought. The key words will be on your web page in the source text, and also in the page description. A search engine can be in the best way to read a Web page access and hence in the first ranks to consolidate.

After that, your home then in the various search engines. During the search engine optimization can register your home at & nbspeiner high number of search engines to be-so your site is found better, and this in turn leads to an automatic increase your orders.

In addition, web catalogs also distortion in a crucial measure for a site in the network to be popular. Your SEO consultancy will determine the most important web catalogs and Internet directories, and add the content accordingly. A plus point is the substantive examination of all sites by human editors, so that an appropriate quality standard is ensured.

One also effective action within the search engine optimization is to book a commercial advertising. These ads are available for a fee and are in a certain area of the search engines separately from the conventionally identified entries. Paid only if a prospect clicks on the advertisement and therefore arrived at their site.

To the search engine optimization for their website off, are also links to other pages exchanged. The larger side of their links to other sites, the better their placement. And as you reach the Through the use of a product directory, where you can only register as a user. The SEO advice helps you to a corresponding article for the directory to create and publish, thus & nbspein or two back links to get their side link. How can you be sure that your page so popular on the Net. With the help of a tracking tools you will receive a detailed insight about the visit data on your side. With this professional full service you will be in the area of search engine optimization in the best way supplies!

About Author

Mario Szirrok is a german seo consultant (in german called Suchmaschinenoptimierung). You can find more informations also at the german SEO Blog.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

Natural Search Engine Optimization - King of Organic Optimization

Author: Robert Thomson

Natural search engine optimization is very important in developing a web presence. Traffic generated from SEO generally is targeted traffic that will bring you business.


With the advent of internet, we have seen the explosion of businesses online. You may own an off line business and wish to take it online. The basic principle of online and off line businesses is the same. You do hear stories of people making it big all the time on the internet. Always take these stories with a pinch of salt, and be prepared to work hard and put in the effort required to make your online business successful.

There are certain advantages of an online business, one of them being the numerous marketing opportunities. There are several tools that help in internet marketing, including natural SEO or natural search engine optimization. Not all of them need loads of money, so you don’t have to worry on that front. Some of these tools are easily available and definitely better than many off line business marketing tools.

Natural SEO is nothing but natural methods used for marketing against the sponsored or purchased methods. Natural SEO primarily is of two types, the off page SEO and the on page SEO.

The least important of the two natural SEO techniques is the on page natural SEO, it is just the basic kind of SEO performed on the web page itself. Here, the website owner needs to take care of optimizing the Title, Keywords, Content, and Description, making sure that when the search engines check the web page, they are convinced that the keywords provided are relevant with the content provided in the web page.

The more important natural SEO method is the off page SEO, which is performed at some other region other than the web page. One of the ways of off page natural SEO is inbound links to the web page from pages that have the similar keywords related to the niche of your website. When the search engines see several such inbound links from various sites in the same niche and relevant keywords, they assume that your webpage is being seen by other websites as being a contender for the particular keywords.

The natural SEO methods cost no money, whether it is submitting articles to various directories or posting on blogs or even getting links back from other websites, unlike other methods of SEO such as Pay per Click, which is paid traffic. Paid traffic is only limited to what you pay for. The minute your account is out of money, you’re PPC ads stop and with it stops the traffic, unlike natural SEO that continues to work.

Many people are of the wrong notion that just paying for SEO gets them results and they won’t have to work on optimizing their site. SEO experts believe that paid advertising is just not enough. Just because you have paid for it, it does not mean that this sort of promotion will take care of your requirements.

The main thing is that if you are spending money for paid advertising, you may not have a site that is search engine optimized. The entire purpose of SEO is to be able to find methods of natural SEO that help your site to rank high in the search engines.

About Author

Michael S. Francis is the owner of www.seovida.com and SEO, SEM, and Internet Marketing Expert. You can find more about SEO for your website by clicking here Miami Search Engine Optimization Company. You can learn about building an online presence for your company by clicking here Fort Lauderdale Search Engine Optimization Company.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

The Secrets of Google Adsense 2008

Author: Robert Thomson

This article illustrates how one can earn hundreds of dollars by tuning your Adsense format. This article also states the two main areas that have the most impact on Adsense revenue for every Webmasters.


It is no surprise that Google Adsense still remain the top favorable income source for most Webmasters. However, as Google implement changes to the advertisement format and behavior, there were considerably a number of Webmasters who are upset about these changes that eventually reduces their earnings.

In order to stay unaffected by the constant changes enforced by Google, a Webmaster has to go back to the basics – creating value to the users. This article will illustrate how you can go about creating valuable content and eventually, pulling in at least hundreds dollars from Google Adsense.

First, the most important factor is to attract the right type of traffic. It makes no use having 100,000 regular visitors per day to your site as compared to 50,000 unique and first-time visitors. Most regular visitors will not click your advertisement. This explains why most blogs with most of its traffic coming from bookmarks do not perform using Google Adsense.

There is only one type of traffic that convert the best for Adsense earnings – Search Engine traffic. Most clicks on the advertisement are triggered by first-time visitors especially if they were referred from search engines. Therefore, in order to increase your earnings for Adsense, focus on Search Engine Optimization. Some of the proven optimization techniques include titles shortening, keywords allocation, article submission and social bookmarking for gaining links popularity.

Another critical impact is the advertisement format. Despite all the various school of thoughts, the most effective format is one that is able to blend into your content and appears natural (in terms of content, colors and fonts). Advertisement placed in boxes also perform better than when they were in the rectangles. Advertisements that are placed above fold also did a good job attracting clicks. However, you should limit the advertisement to 3 unit per page. Anything more than that will make your page looks unprofessional and low value.

One very useful tip to increase your Adsense earnings is to use the horizontal link unit. This type of advertisement appears like navigation menu and thus, making up most of the clicks in an average site. Most of my sites generate over 70% of my income from this particular type of advertisement format.

To summarize, there are only two things to worry about – Traffic and advertisement format. Once you can get the right type of traffic flowing into your site, you can then focus on capturing the clicks from the traffic by displaying natural advertisement.

About Author

KC TAN is an Internet Entrepreneur who has been generating passive income stream from Websites for several years. He is also the author of the book, The Secrets of Adsense 2008. He also runs a CSS layout review blog.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

Ecommerce Web Site Design

Author: Colin Wood

When it comes to ecommerce web site design the ultimate goal of the site is to lead customers to buy products from your site.


Ecommerce web site design that allows you:

1. Have a product or service which you can sell online. Selling products or services online have, by far seen the biggest profit potential in the long run. Once you get a successful products or services, you can automate the system and move on to new products that will generate multiple streams of income. By this way, you let your customers to buy something online and complete a transaction by paying for it online as well.

2. To require interaction with some third party web sites to be able to provide you this service. There are essential components of ecommerce web site that must be understood and planned for database drive, shopping carts, payment processing, payment gateways and fraud protection.

3. Have potential to provide an excellent revenue stream for a business. The majority of successful ecommerce models often make use of several revenue streams, and could be claimed to fit into any or all of those broad categories.

If you want to build websites that are ecommerce ready, but don't have the ecommerce web site design experience needed to accomplish the task, you can hire an ecommerce web site design professional to help you with the trickier portions of site development. With a minimal amount of help from you, a professional designer can build web sites that are visually appealing and then incorporate the features you need to complete ecommerce transactions.

It might be a smart idea for you and your selected web design company to go over competitor websites in the same industry as yours. Analyze these websites for strengths and weakness. What makes them effective and what could be improved on? With this knowledge in hand you'll be able to build a better website.

Should you look to upgrade your website then re-designing or even creating a new design is just what you need. The experts in ecommerce web site design can help ensure future success for your business endeavor online. The designs are usually aesthetic that makes it pleasing enough to catch the eye of potential customers. You can do this with the help of web advisors, creative designers and the ones who can program your site for you and all this from a single ecommerce web design company. This can help you as a client get the maximum return on the investment of the web site designed.

Remember, when it comes to your business and your companies exposure on internet, take you time locating a quality web design company. Your future may depend on it.

About Author

http://www.rtdesigngroup.com is providing affordable web site design and web marketing services in Florida, US. Or call 239 - 913 - 0279.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com

5 Tips To Make Money on Craigslist

Author: Robert Thomson

Making money on Craigslist is one of the most over-looked things, but also one of the easiest things, if done correctly.


Craigslist is one of the most visited sites on the internet today, with millions upon, millions of visitors a day. With this many visitors
daily, it is very easy to get a nice chunk of traffic with your postings. I have put some tips together for you guys, apply these, and you WILL make money!

Tip 1: DON'T POST DUPLICATE POSTS!
Posting duplicate posts will do nothing for you but get your ads taken down. Yes, it is easy to just copy and paste, and make over 100 ads within minutes, but it won't do you any good.

Tip 2: USE DIFFERENT IPS!
Using different IPs is another way to avoid getting your ad flagged. One way Craigslist will know to flag your posts is by looking at the IP you are using. If they see multiple ads from the same IP, they will most likely flag your ad, thus your profits will suffer. (Wait, you won't have any.) One way you can change your IP is by using a proxy. If you want a list of them, check out proxy.org. They have thousands of them.

Tip 3: DONT BE AN IDIOT!
Being an idiot is the easiest way to not make money on Craigslist. Do not post something, blatantly spamming your URL. This is an example of what NOT to do:

"HEY GUYS CHECK OUT MY SITE ITS THE BEST!!!! LOL11!!! http://myaffiliatelink.com LOL OK GO THER PLX"

Doing this is also a good way to get banned from your CPA network as well, which also is not a good thing.

Tip 4: CATCH THE CURIOSITY OF THE READER!
This is one of the most important tips of all. By catching the curiosity of the reader you have a much higher chance of getting an email from them, or getting a click on your link. Also, make sure to keep your ad short - this will help catch their curiosity.

Tip 5: DON'T GIVE UP, EVER!
That's it, DON'T GIVE UP. Giving up is the easiest way to not make money online. To make money you must stick with it. I know it will be hard, but when you finally do get that first sale, or that first lead, it's the greatest feeling ever. If you can do it once, you can do it a million times.

About Author

Justin Livingston Owner of Craigslist for Profits Make Money On Craigslist.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

3 Steps Of Ecommerce Web Site Development

Author: Colin Wood

You build a offline business, you advertise in your local newspaper, you get customers coming into your store, and you receive payment at the cash register. Create an online store, and...how do you get customers? How do you receive payment? The concept is the same, but the steps are different.


When it comes to ecommerce web site development the ultimate goal of the web site is to lead customers to buy products from your site. There are three steps for affordable web design with your ecommerce web site:

Step 1: Design Your Web Site
One must at the very beginning decide on the amount that is to be spent on getting the web site designed. Only after this is done should one start to choose a Web site designing firm. Thus the affordability analysis should be also taken into consideration while making the final decision. Regardless of the price of the web site design you are paying for, it is advisable to look at all possible options before making a decision and choosing a company. Good web site design is when there will be an obvious return on investment, over a set term.

Designing an ecommerce web site is quite different than designing other types of web sites. Most stores use an online catalog type of format organized by category. You will need crystal clear pictures of each item you're selling, as well as a detailed description to tell customers everything they need to know. An ecommerce web site must not only present the merchandise effectively, it must provide a safe and easy way for customers to order.

Step 2: Set up Your Store
Your customers will browse at your web site, select some items, and then pay for them. When you set up an e-commerce shopping cart, you’re providing a way for your customers to bring their purchases to the cash register. The program you choose will allow you to enter your products in the database and allow shoppers to choose products when they click on “Add to cart” or something similar. There are elements for a installing ecommerce web site:

Domain.
Domain names are very essential aspects of any web site business. These may have been the most overlooked areas but the impact that they can bring about to any business is so immense. It is for this reason that the name you choose should be carefully studied and analyzed before they are purchased and used.

Web hosting.
After you have determined that your future web site host is a reliable, well established company, let's look at their offer's technical details and understand what they stand for. There are many factors that determine a good and reliable hosting company such as: Reliability, Bandwidth, File Storage Space, Reputation, Statistics, Control Panel, Support, Backups, Range Of Services, Cost, and more.

Ecommerce script/ software.
Store owners can set up their online stores using ecommerce script/ software with either free or paid ecommerce script/ software. For small stores, it has all the features you need for an online store. For example: OScommerce, Zen Cart, PHP Auction, Cube Cart, Open Realty, Miva Merchant, etc.

Payment processor gateway.
When customers arrive at the checkout counter, you need a way for their payments to be transferred from their credit card accounts to your bank account. The method you choose may depend on your sales volume. There are popular payment processor companies: PayPal, 2CheckOut, Authorize.net and WorldPay.

Step 3: Promote Your Web Site To Worldwide
Here are some ways you can get web traffic to your web site. A new website might get 10 - 20 vistor's daily. If your web site is good and improved frequently it will give you up to 100 - 200 vistor's daily. Some websites will have up to more 1,000 vistors daily. Then its essential you promote your product or service. Some ways have proven as the most efficient in generating traffic to your web site: Pay Per Click, Article Submission, Press Release, Link Exchange, Directories Submission, and more.

About Author

http://www.rtdesigngroup.com is providing affordable web site design and web marketing services include ecommerce web site development in Florida, US. Or call 239 - 913 - 0279.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-colin-wood-8846.html

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Private Label Resell Rights

Author: Yukitee

If obtaining the private label resell rights to a particular product sounds like an amazing business opportunity, you may be right. However, with all other business opportunities, it is important to remember one thing; not all opportunities work for everyone.


At any given moment in time, there are a number of individuals who are searching the internet in hopes of finding a legitimate money making opportunity. Many of those individuals are at-home parents, others are retired, and some just want to find a better opportunity. If you are interested in making money, in a relatively easy way, you are advised to further examine private label resell rights. It may very well be the opportunity that you have been searching for.

Private label resell rights are typically offered by the product’s creator. Although these individuals may have the time and the knowledge needed to create new products, most do not have the time or the knowledge to sell those products. Instead of selling their own products, many rely on others to do the selling for them. When you obtain the resell rights to a private label product, you are buying the rights to resell that product. These products most commonly include software programs and e-books, but they are not limited to just those products. After the transaction has taken place, you will then be responsible for selling the product. In fact, you will make money from each sale that you successfully process.

If obtaining the private label resell rights to a particular product sounds like an amazing business opportunity, you may be right. However, with all other business opportunities, it is important to remember one thing; not all opportunities work for everyone. This means that although someone you know may be able to turn a profit buying the resell rights to an e-book or a software program, you may not necessarily be able to. Before investing in a private label product, no matter what that product is, you shall examine the advantages and disadvantages of private label resell rights. This step is important to determining whether or not this business opportunity can help you make money online.

The biggest advantage of private label resell rights is that you get to make money selling a product that you don’t even create. In some cases, you are even allowed, and maybe even required, to alter the work, but then you can claim it as your own. This means that overnight you literally could become a freelance writer or a software developer.

Another advantage of private label resell rights it the flexibility you will have. Each time you sell the product, which you have acquired the resell rights, you will make money. The amount of money you could make will all depend on how many hours you work. These hours could be as much or as little as you want. In fact, many private label resell buyers are able to make money selling their products with only working a few hours a week.

While there are advantages to obtaining the resell rights to a private label product, there are disadvantages as well. To make money, you must able to find a product that will sell. Unfortunately, too many resell right buyers do not research a product before buying it. Those individuals usually end up losing money because they purchased a product that was poor in quality or one that couldn’t sell. Of course, this disadvantage doesn’t have to be one. You can always learn some great tips on how to find and resell products on the internet. All you need to do is research each product before agreeing to purchase it. This research could have make you money, rather than losing it.

The above mentioned advantages and disadvantage, to buying private label resell rights, are just a few of the many. Despite the fact that there are additional advantages and disadvantages, most people find that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages; thus, making this a profitable business venture.

About Author

More Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies at http://journeytofinancialfree.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-yukitee-7422.html

Think Adsense, Grow More Cents

Author: Robert Thomson

This article illustrates how to use Adsense program correctly and create a good stream of passive income. It also talks about a quick platform to generate Adsense income instantly.


In the event that you are new to the Internet and have never heard of Adsense, you are in for a pleasant surprise. This program rewards you for providing interesting content to web surfers, across the globe. Regardless of your business, hobby or passion, you can make Adsense work for you.

Adsense is probably not for everyone. But, if you are serious about generating an income stream from your website or blog, then think Adsense. With effort and persistence you can utilize the program to grow more cents or even thousand of dollars.

You probably will not make money overnight, unless you have a site which already receives massive traffic. There is nothing wrong with starting from scratch and working your way up the ladder. Most big Adsense earners start small aiming high.

One of the greatest things about Adsense, other than the fact that it offers huge earning potential, is the program lets you earn money while you sleep. If you own multiple websites or blogs, you can easily add the Adsense codes and start earning.

You do have to apply to the program in order for you to begin. Once your initial site is approved, you can add additional sites without going through the approval process again.

There are guidelines you must adhere to, but as long as your site is not under construction and does not contain illegal or questionable content, there are high chances that you will be approved.

Once your site has been approved by Adsense, you should start reading up materials on how to optimize your site to achieve optimal Adsense performance. One great site for reading is the official Adsense blog at blogspot. This blog offers the latest news and tips helping publishers to generate the revenue correctly and safely.

There are also many other third-party tutorials and e-books, which had been written on the subject of generating income using Adsense. To be successful in this venture, it is very important to read, implement and test!

Obviously, not everyone will make millions out of Adsense. Like any other businesses, it is all about trial, error and dedication to the your passion.

If you do not have a website, you can start blogging quickly and easily using a platform such as Blogger.com. There is no charge to do this and it is a very user friendly.

Many successful bloggers have started out using this method and have done so well that they ultimately made the decision to move to their own domain. Where it is possible for them to make even more money.

About Author

KC TAN is the author of The Secrets of Adsense 2008 and Internet Entrepreneur who runs a service oriented blog at KC Hut. You can find one excellent example of how to place your Adsense advertisement on the CCP4BB page. KC also recommends using Acne Free in 3 days to cure your acne.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-robert-thomson-5539.html

The Rules of Digital Engagement

by Jonathan Follett

For contract web workers, consultants, and freelancers who work with far-flung collaborators, multiple clients, and constantly shifting teams, the rules of digital engagement—the way we interact with each other and resolve conflict in virtual space—are constantly changing. As we adapt to new ways of collaborating, we must also learn how to communicate effectively, set expectations, and build team confidence in an evolving work environment.

In a previous A List Apart, I wrote about the long hallway: the connections, methods, and culture that enable virtual work and virtual companies. The long hallway represents that space between collaborators in a virtual environment, located down the street or across the globe. However, once you commit to working down the long hallway, the question becomes, how do you successfully navigate this new and changing territory?

The challenges of working virtually
When it comes to work style and culture, virtual teams—especially groups of contractors—are inherently less formal and more flexible than traditional office-based organizations. We are, as William Gibson puts it in his novel Pattern Recognition, “post-geographic”—operating beyond physical boundaries. But when workers no longer collaborate within a particular physical space, they must adopt a disciplined devotion to process. In digital space, the physical artifacts of day-to-day business we share are gone—what remains are discussions and deliverables. The way we hold discussions and create deliverables becomes increasingly important.

Driving off a virtual cliff
Effective communication relies not just on the information conveyed, but also the information comprehended. Despite a decade of email and electronic collaboration, we don’t fully understand its effect on what we comprehend and how others comprehend us.

Managing conflict in virtual space
When I travel outside the United States, especially in countries where I do not know the language well, the information flow between myself and others can be poor and communication requires extra effort. There are a host of reasons why, including cultural differences, translation problems, and misplaced assumptions. To communicate in these circumstances, you need a profound lack of embarrassment (especially when trying out new words), a little ingenuity and, of course, a lot of patience and understanding. I try to apply these core techniques when communicating in virtual space.

Good communication technique might not completely eliminate the low-level conflict that can dominate some virtual projects, but it can help minimize the pain. Here, then, are some strategies for dealing with conflict on virtual teams.

Respect others’ communication styles
Communication style—the communication methods people use and prefer, how often they check in, how much they tell you, and how willing they are to communicate—can greatly affect project workflow. Whether you’re the project manager or a team member, it’s important to understand and adapt to the communication style of those working with you.

For instance, some web workers prefer to be constantly in touch via instant messaging or Skype. Project teams may designate a VOIP conference room as an open meeting space and leave their headsets on all day. Others may prefer to communicate during specified meeting times only, and view a constant flow of updates and questions as intrusive. It’s helpful if the project manager can bridge the gap between these types. While differences in communication styles won’t necessarily sink a project, it can cause unnecessary conflict and make the working environment tense. For instance, if someone expects an immediate response to a question, which doesn’t arrive until the next team meeting, they won’t be happy. Conversely, badgering an unresponsive colleague with messages and requests for additional meetings without considering their need for space can be equally troublesome.

Maintain real-world decorum
The virtual world often provides a shield that allows people to write things online that they would never say to someone in person. It’s difficult to stare someone in the face while you tell them you think their idea is rotten—and that’s good. In the real world, such discomfort over hurting someone’s feelings makes people think of gentler ways to express dissatisfaction with the work, and to suggest improvements, all of which leads to less conflict and better cohesion. But in the virtual world, people will often type things that are more bold—and rude—than they would ever say in real life. So it’s important that all team members work hard to maintain face-to-face standards of politeness and strive to frame criticism in as positive a manner as possible.

On longer projects, debrief regularly
You can’t make adjustments if you don’t learn from your mistakes. Simply taking notes about difficult situations can spark new solutions or reveal hidden problems. Many design teams hold a post-mortem project meeting to analyze how the work process unfolded. However, in a virtual space, you may need to adapt to changing situations mid-project.

Negative is a four-letter word
The morale of a virtual team can play a huge role in the success or failure of a project. As virtual work provides flexibility and freedom, it can also be isolating and even somewhat depressing, especially if you enjoy interacting with others regularly. This is another reason why conflict in the virtual space can be difficult to manage. If a team member already feels isolated or hasn’t really adjusted to the realities of the virtual work experience, this can spill over into the project.

In virtual space, there are also fewer ways to vent frustrations. So, once a project goes bad, it can be a lot easier to dwell on negative emotions. The benefits of keeping communication positive—encouraging people, celebrating milestones, and just saying “thank you”—can make a huge difference over the course of a project.

Mitigate stress
Above all, as the project manager, it’s vital to regularly evaluate the stress level of your team members. In virtual space, it’s too easy for hard-driving types to work all the time, never taking much needed breaks. Since there is no official office space to help dictate the time boundaries of work, that choice remains in the hands of the individual. So if you rely heavily on a developer who doesn’t know when to stop coding, encourage him to take a day off. Mitigating stress and anticipating burnout on your team is crucial to surviving a project.

Stay in touch
And, of course, everyone should stay in contact on a regular basis—weekends (hopefully) excluded. Never let anyone on the team disappear or lose touch for longer than a day. A project can quickly unravel unless team members touch base with some frequency.

Self-defense for the web worker
Ultimately, on web projects, no matter how much you anticipate, you’ll end up having tough conversations and tense moments. Some creative debate can mean that team members are fully engaged and passionate about a job. However, if conflicts are ongoing and never resolved, the tension can sap enthusiasm for a project and make meeting deadlines difficult. Not agreeing with how the project is proceeding is OK. Not being able to live with it is not.

Sometimes no reaction is the best reaction
It can be hard to separate critical words from the messenger, or to set those words aside once they’ve been said, especially if they’re related to your work or contributions. But, this is part of the challenge of keeping a virtual project on track. Both clients and team members will want to blow off steam, and they’ll need to bend your ear. Simply saying “I hear you” or “I understand” can work wonders, even if that’s all you offer, in the end, to solve the problem.

Dodging bullets
Direct confrontation with a team member or client, especially on the phone or over e-mail, can lead to a horrible conclusion. It may feel strange to dodge a direct inquiry, but sometimes it’s necessary. “Let me get back to you on that” is perhaps the greatest piece of verbal self-defense. Just as in martial arts, if you’re not there when a punch lands, you can’t be hurt by it. Deliberately inserting a pause into a tense conversation gives people the opportunity to cool off. And—while it might seem trite—sleeping on a problem can reveal possible solutions.

Flexibility and adaptability are the keys to the virtual work process and managing our digital engagements. Considering the project from perspectives other than your own and realizing that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts goes a long way toward achieving harmony in cyberspace. But in the end, virtual work and the methods you’ve developed to manage it are still new and without precedent. We are all still hard-wired for a world in which we work face-to-face with people, and the virtual workspace is still in its experimental stages. We must not forget this as we shape our communication strategies.

On Creativity

by Andy Rutledge

If you’re a web designer, do you consider yourself to be “a creative”? When you describe your profession to others, or when you promote yourself or your agency, are references to creativity prominent in your words? If so, how do you characterize creativity’s role or significance in your work? How closely do your references to creativity conform to the popular understanding of creativity…and how much to its actual nature?

This last distinction is important because the popular conception of creativity and its relationship to design is often distorted. As designers, we are, rightly or not, widely perceived as custodians and professional exponents of creativity. Therefore, the ways in which we define, employ, and represent creativity matter.

In light of this professional responsibility, it’s best that designers recognize the difference between idealistic definitions of creativity and the practical, effective nature of the applied creativity professionals must exercise—and then behave accordingly. Individual designers may have differing ideas about these issues. I believe that our ideas about creativity and how we employ it factor significantly in the quality of our design efforts and in our professional prospects, so I want to challenge your concept of creativity’s place in our work and professional communication.

So what is creativity?

Creativity is…
…never having to say you’re sorry. Yes, just like love. In fact, like love, we must never judge or ridicule creativity. Creativity is precious; it is our birthright and a glowing light that resides within each one of us, making us special and unique…

Well, not really. These sorts of sentiments are fine for young children needing reassurance and encouragement, but as designers, our creative efforts are judged—and rightly so. While many commonly popular definitions of creativity amount to little more than references to self-expression or flamboyancy, we designers should not be so lax or obtuse in our concept of it. Much hinges on our use of creativity, including our clients’ fortunes.

Creativity has nothing at all to do with self-expression or flamboyancy. Aside from the simple ability to create things, the most important feature of creativity is a highly developed perception filter that is somewhat less common than we’re led to believe. Despite what we were taught in school, we don’t all possess significant creativity, and fewer of us still have any skill at employing it. True, anyone can make something, and anyone can make something up. In this mundane sense, everyone is creative. But this basic truth belies the design-relevant definition of creativity, and ignores the fact that each one of us has different creative abilities.

Creativity is technical and analytical, not expressive (as in self-expression). It is a filter through which perception and output pass, not a receptor or an infusion (as in the case of inspiration). Creativity may require or be enhanced by inspiration, but the two are distinct forces. (These facts are vital in discriminating between appropriate and inappropriate descriptions and applications of creativity.)

Creativity is an inborn capacity for thinking differently than most, seeing differently, and making connections and perceiving relationships others miss. But most importantly, it is the ability to then extrapolate contextually useful ways of employing that data: to create something that meets a specific challenge. By this definition, creativity is merely a tool; it does not convey skill. For a dedicated few, though, this inborn capacity is then further augmented by certain disciplines, including:

ongoing curiosity,
the desire and habit of looking more deeply into things than others care to,
the habit of comparing stimulus with result, and
a habit for qualitative discrimination.
It is primarily these disciplines that set top creative professionals apart from those who are merely gifted. It is also these disciplines that help shape a designer’s intuitive senses, which are vital to design craft, processes, and overall success. Being merely creatively gifted is no qualification for design expertise, and the idea that creativity is a magic bullet that anyone or any designer may employ to positive effect is a vacuous notion.

There is another factor that’s vital to the effective use of creativity in the design process: timing, or when in the design process creativity should be employed. The most effective use of creativity begins with a litany of very un-creative things called “facts”—the facts we get to know during the discovery process.

Careful where you point that thing
The siren song of creativity is likely responsible for more bad design than any other factor. Some might think this overly dramatic, but I believe we should regard creativity as a rather dangerous tool. Like a firearm, it should be treated with caution and respect, and used professionally only by trained individuals.

If you are a designer worth your salt, you know that no design project begins with creativity. Instead, it begins with client- and/or context-specific discovery, and lots of research to help you understand the fundamental nature of the challenges at hand. All designers must guard against the urge to invest in specific creative ideas before becoming intimately familiar with the contextual landscape of a design project.

Sadly, creativity is often used as a crutch, or as a surrogate for design competence. Some individuals reveal themselves as clinging to this practice when they complain that some client work prevents them from “being creative.” What they mean here is that they dislike not being allowed to express themselves. But design competence has little to do with self-expression, and creativity is no substitute for knowledge or comprehensive understanding. Instead, design is most significantly founded on the comprehensive understanding and greatly developed empathetic/sympathetic sense that highly skilled and disciplined individuals bring to bear.

Design creativity often involves coming at a communication or interaction challenge sideways, or from another uncommon angle. In this way, you may find clever or otherwise compelling concepts upon which to base your solution. The thing is, you can never know what constitutes a sideways approach until you have fully explored and are intimately familiar with the entire landscape.

For instance, if your client is NASA and you’re asked to design a spacesuit that allows for a greater degree of physical movement and manual dexterity, you can’t leap straight into creative brainstorming and suggest a form-fitting spandex suit. That would be a creative response to the issue presented to you, but it would also reveal your ignorance of the overall context, e.g. the fact that space is a vacuum.

Creative mythconception
Before we continue, I want to touch on a common misrepresentation of creativity. In discussions with other designers, occasionally one might hear arguments for how web design creativity is or can be stifled by various external forces, like web standards or client-mandated constraints. But these sentiments indicate a flawed concept of creativity, its place in design, and its purpose in our process.

Any reference to constraints that limit creativity is just another way of equating creativity with self-expression, an erroneous and irresponsible idea. Except for personal projects, self-expression has no place in design, but constraint is vital to design. No component fuels creativity more than constraint. Indeed, without constraint, creativity (and design) is irrelevant. The discovery process is mostly about finding constraints, which is why we must do such a thorough job of it.

Constraints are a designer’s best friend. They’re signposts, not shackles. In a sense, constraints amount to the solution half-built. It is merely up to us to then realize the other half according to what these signposts indicate is appropriate. Nowhere in this concept does self-expression find any valid foothold.

Our intuitive, subjective design senses are relevant to our work. Part of a designer’s job is to show people what they want before they know they want it, and our success in doing so is based largely on our intuitive abilities. But there is a difference between what we prefer and what we know will work best. Competence demands that we understand this difference and filter purely subjective data from sympathetic, fundamentals-based creative work.

Steering the conversation
While my goal here has been to offer designers something to consider about their work and perhaps some challenging ideas to chew on, I have another purpose in all of this. At the start of this article, I asked how you conceive of and associate yourself with ideas of creativity, from a professional perspective. I noted that designers are generally considered to be the custodians of creativity in the professional world, but this distinction may soon come with a cost. So I want to describe a scenario I deem important to our profession, and perhaps to present you with another challenging idea.

If you read any of the prominent business magazines, like Forbes, Fast Company, Business Week, or Inc., you can find in every issue references to how creativity is vital to success. With the tangible benefits of great design being touted and trumpeted from every corner of the business world, companies aim to seize on what they believe to be the key factor in great design and innovation: creativity. What’s so appealing and what is apparently widely believed is that creativity is absolutely free and available to, and from, everyone on staff. Score!

Businesses are also beginning to look beyond their own sandboxes for the benefits of creativity. Many businesses are looking to customers to craft their marketing, believing that the vast pool of ordinary citizens is a valuable untapped creative resource. But when you recognize, as we do, that creativity is not a magic bullet, and that few individuals understand how to employ it effectively, you can sense trouble looming on the horizon.

The ideas circulating in business communities are misguided; the results of this sort of activity are usually wholly unproductive and inevitably lead to disillusionment. But that’s not all they’ll lead to. Another result of this failed effort is likely to be a vengeful backlash against “creativity.” This all-too-predictable pendulum swing will reflect poorly on design professions, which will be both unfortunate and unfair, given that creativity has so little to do with effective design.

Because of this impending trend in much of the business world’s perceptions and opinions of creativity, the design profession will increasingly be judged by how it represents creativity. Web design is one of the so-called creative professions, but that classification has potential to be an albatross around our collective neck, and I think it is a good idea for all of us to soberly consider how we represent value to our clients.

Think about it:

Are you most comfortable asking your clients to invest in your creativity or in your design competence? Or do you believe these two things to be synonymous?
If you are the client and you’re spending $450,000 or $45,000 or even $4,500 on design/marketing services, do you trust to design skill or creativity first?
When a client admonishes you with, “…now I don’t want you to get too creative on this one…” does it indicate that they’ve got a clear grasp of creativity’s place in design work?

Which quality is easiest to demonstrate to clients and potential clients: your creativity or your skill-based design competence?

Which quality do you think your clients can more easily grasp and perceive benefit from: your foundational design skills or your creativity?

All of these questions relate strongly to perception rather than substance, but we are in the business of crafting perception, and our substance depends on our clients’ and potential clients’ perceptions. It is our business to craft those perceptions about how creativity fits into our work—if we don’t, others will do it for us, and the result may not be to our liking.

Building an E-commerce Site

Author: Synapse India

E-commerce development is said to be the most effective and impressive way of economic growth in which information and communication works together to generate profitable results.


E-commerce development is said to be the most effective and impressive way of economic growth in which information and communication works together to generate profitable results. This process has empowered the countries to spread their trade relations and strengthens a new direction of development and growth.

There is a variety of development technologies through which the potential companies get the most comprehensive range of e-commerce solutions to choose from. Therefore, it is important to partner with the company that holds the expertise, required essentials, and adequate facilities to serve the growing demands and requirements of the large, medium as well as small organizations throughout the world. With a diverse e-commerce development system, a company can generate better design and custom software development than earlier. Modern companies also facilitate the design and development of an entire ecommerce web site with a detailed database of products, product information and product search, order processing and payment systems, etc.

Adopting e-commerce solutions refers to adding lots of simplicity, timeliness, and marketing tools to make the system more applicable and useful. A fully automated e-commerce website needs to be really functional along with search engine friendliness and attractive web design to provide better results and money generating sustainability.

Following e-commerce development tips help you to make a really functional and workable website. :

Suppliers - Suppliers are the most important people for constructing a good website. Without good suppliers you cannot offer products.

Price Point - An e-commerce website helps in better price comparison and customers can make an easy choice.

Customer Relations - Through a good e-commerce website, you can easily reach out to customers in many different ways such as e-mail, FAQs, knowledge bases, forums, chat rooms etc.

Result Matters - The aim of an e-commerce website is to provide ultimate fulfillment, returns, and customer service.

About Author

This article has been contributed by the webmaster of www.synapse.co.in - A renowned outsourcing company offering a wide range of services including offshore web application development, search engine marketing, outsource web development, outsourcing software development and ecommerce solutions in India.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-synapse-india-406.html

How to Size Text in CSS

by Richard Rutter

There’s been a welcome resurgence of interest in web typography over the past year or so, with many articles and conference talks offering techniques and theory. Frequently asserted is the notion that good typography requires accurate control of font size and line-height. But this is the web: it’s a special medium where the reader can have as much control as the designer—the implication being that text on the web, while bending to the designer’s will, must also be reliably resizable across browsers and platforms.

In this article, we will reconcile the designer’s requirement for accuracy with the user’s need to resize text on demand, arriving at a best practice that satisfies designers and users and works across browsers and platforms.

We’ll reach our destination by the traditional method of trial and error. With more than a nod to Owen Briggs’s pioneering work of 2002, I have created a base case with six iterations and 161 screenshots. Follow along, won’t you?

The test suite
The content used for testing purposes was a two-column layout with body copy on the left and a sidebar on the right. Text was set in Arial to aid consistency across operating systems and platforms.

The browsers used for testing were Safari 2, Firefox 2 and Opera 9.5α running on Mac OS X Tiger, along with Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) running on Windows XP with ClearType turned on. Clearly this is not an exhaustive list of browsers, operating systems, or rendering engines, but it covers the majority of users out there today.

Each operating system and browser was run using its default settings. Every iteration was tested to see how each browser rendered text at smaller, medium, larger, and largest sizes, along with 90%, 100%, 110%, and 120% page zoom levels, where applicable.

Base case
First it was necessary to verify that browsers provided a consistent baseline from which to start. The base case shows that in each browser, the default text size is consistently 16px when no styles are applied (other than the browser defaults), and the text scales fairly consistently across the board.

Text size in pixels – iteration 1
The default text size of the base case is a good starting point, but for most people (designers, clients, and their customers) 16px is too large for body text. In our example, the body text was reduced to 14px, with the sidebar set at 12px. This first iteration does just that, setting the fonts in pixels:

.bodytext p {
font-size:14px;
}

.sidenote {
font-size:12px;
}The result is that Safari and Firefox still resize the text, whereas IE6 and IE7 do not. The text can be resized in Opera and IE7 by using the page zoom tool, which magnifies the page layout, text and images within.

Text size in ems – iteration 2
Although browser market share differs from site to site, and browser share statistics are drawn in sand, it’s safe to say that IE6 is still used by many people. So setting text in pixels would leave many people no means of resizing it. There’s also an argument that says IE7 users should be able to resize text without being forced to use the zoom control.

The next unit to try for text sizing is ems. The em is a true typographic unit, recommended by the W3C, and affords a precision keywords lack. Working from a default of 16px, the following styles should give the desired text sizes:

.bodytext p {
font-size:0.875em; /* 16x.875=14 */
}

.sidenote {
font-size:0.75em; /* 16x0.75=12 */
}The results show that, across all browsers, text at the medium browser setting is rendered identically to text set in pixels. It also demonstrates that text sized in ems can be resized across all browsers. However IE6 and IE7 unacceptably exaggerate the smallness and largeness of the resized text.

Body sized as percentage – iteration 3
A fix to the exaggerated text resizing of IE6 and IE7 is to size the body using a percentage. So retaining the ems on our content, the following styles were tested:

body {
font-size:100%;
}

.bodytext p {
font-size:0.875em;
}

.sidenote {
font-size:0.75em;
}The results show that the difference between larger and smaller browser settings in IE6 and IE7 is now less pronounced, meaning we now have all browsers rendering text at an identical size on their medium setting, and resizing text consistently.

Setting line height in pixels – iteration 4
Recent web typography articles such as “Setting Type on the Web to a Baseline Grid” (A List Apart, April 2007) stress that good typography requires a vertical grid, that is to say a solid vertical rhythm achieved with a consistent, measured line-height. The key implication is that line-height should be the same regardless of the size of the text (so that line-height, or the vertical grid, remains consistent, regardless of font size).

For our example, a suitable line-height is 18px, so that is added to the body as follows:

body {
font-size:100%;
line-height:18px;
}

.bodytext p {
font-size:0.875em;
}

.sidenote {
font-size:0.75em;
}The results show that the 18px line-height is inherited by all text on the page—note how the sidebar text has the same regular rhythm as the body copy. Specifying a unit (in this case, px) when setting the line-height enables the value to be inherited throughout the page. If a unitless line-height had been specified, the multiplier would have been inherited, resulting in line-heights being rendered proportionally to the text size, thus breaking the vertical rhythm.

Unfortunately the results show that the 18px line-height is not scaled by IE6 and IE7 when text is resized, meaning the largest setting appears to squash the text.

Setting line height in ems – iteration 5
When pixels failed before, we turned to ems. Repeating the logic gives us the following styles:

body {
font-size:100%;
line-height:1.125em; /* 16×1.125=18 */
}

.bodytext p {
font-size:0.875em;
}

.sidenote {
font-size:0.75em;
}The results show accurate, consistently resized text and line-height across all browsers. Perfect. Or nearly so.

The Safari monospace problem – iteration 6
The observant among you may have noticed a wee glitch in the Safari screenshots: the monospaced font included in the body text is rendered inconsistently. For text set in pixels, Safari renders the monospaced font at the same size as the proportional-width text surrounding it. When text is set in ems, however, Safari renders monospace text much smaller than the surrounding text. The inconsistency appears to stem from Safari’s default text sizes, which are 16px for “standard fonts” and 13px for “fixed-width fonts.” Safari 3α on OS X does not appear to suffer from this problem.

You could decide that undersized monospace text in Safari is something you and your readers can live with, and as Safari 3 is included in OS X Leopard and the latest update to Tiger, it will not be long until the problem pretty much disappears. For the nervous control freak who can’t wait, an alternative fix is to send text sized in pixels to Safari.

The following code appends a downlevel-revealed conditional comment to our styles, so that pixels are sent to all browsers except IE6 and IE7 (note the [if !IE] syntax, instructing IE/Win to ignore the markup that follows).








The results show consistently resized text and line-height across all browsers, including the monospaced text in Safari 2.

Conditional comments are controversial, with many detractors and proponents, but I believe the approach is appropriate in this case, as we are using a browser feature (conditional comments) to work around a browser behaviour (non-resizing of pixels). It should also be noted that, for the sake of clarity, the code listed above presents CSS rules within style elements; best practice would dictate the use of linked style sheets instead.

Conclusion
Our task was to find a way to size text that allows designers to retain accurate control of typography, without sacrificing the user’s ability to adjust his or her reading environment. We tested various units across common browsers. Sizing text and line-height in ems, with a percentage specified on the body (and an optional caveat for Safari 2), was shown to provide accurate, resizable text across all browsers in common use today. This is a technique you can put in your kit bag and use as a best practice for sizing text in CSS that satisfies both designers and readers.

Addendum
Ems can be tricky to work with, especially when nesting elements deeply, as it can be hard to keep track of the maths. However, commenting your style sheets well and styling elements from the body inwards can keep things easier to follow. This more complex example and its accompanying style sheet demonstrate how to size nested elements using the body as the starting point.

How to Choose Tools That Customize Online Shopping

By Michelle Megna

A recent study by Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru explores the concept of e-tail "personalization," or the capability to provide customers with customized products and offers. The report, "Which Personalization Tools work for E-Commerce and Why," outlines this growing trend, citing relative newcomers in the field who now offer such services at more affordable prices, even for small businesses. (Some of these players, such as Aggregate Knowledge, CleverSet, Baynote and Mercado, have been covered here at ECommerce-Guide. See our "Related Stories.")


Since shoppers generally embrace personalized buying experiences, Mulpuru explains how Web shop owners can decide which tools will help them customize their transaction process. First, however, she provides a comprehensive overview of the trend, outlining exactly what personalization encompasses, why e-tailers should be aware of it, the factors boosting its popularity and what types of goals it accomplishes.

To start, she defines the term personalization. This can mean one-on-one interactions, such as greeting return customers by name or letting them save a shopping cart, or accomplished on a "one-to-many" basis, for instance, by creating different versions of your site for different demographics. For the purpose of the study, she says personalization is "creating experiences on Web sites or through interactive media that are unique to individuals or segments of customers."

Mulpuru says e-tailers should be interested in providing personalized shopping transactions because they increase customer engagement and loyalty through increased relevance. "Enabled by external tools sometimes called personalization engines, recommendation engines, discovery engines, or behavioral targeting tools, personalization allows retailers to increase relevance through activities like matching cross-sells to customers based on interests or customizing click-stream paths based on previous purchase or visit histories."

Specifically, this type of customer interaction is important because shoppers value recommendations. "Seventy-seven percent of customers say that they find recommendations in general somewhat to extremely useful, and roughly one-third of consumers who notice recommendations on e-commerce sites report purchasing a product based on such recommendations," according to the study.

What Took So Long?
So, the question is why have e-tailers been relatively slow to adopt personalization? Mulpuru says the answer is simple: During the past 10 years it was too complex and expensive to set up. Now, though, she cites a "renaissance" in the industry and says the following factors are making it easier for online sellers to use personalization:
Cheaper deployment costs. There are are now tools based on a revenue share of incremental revenue generated through the recommendation engine, eliminating any upfront costs, which is naturally appealing to smaller e-businesses.

Flexibility within the tools. One of the most common critiques of personalization tools used to be that they weren't flexible or adaptable on-the-fly. Given this well-known shortcoming, developers of the new generation of tools have addressed this issue, either work closely with clients to alter algorithms or to provide user interfaces where clients can affect rules independently. E-business executives report that companies such as Aggregate Knowledge and Certona respond very rapidly to client requests for change. Additionally, the fact that many of these solutions are software-as-a-service models enables them to offer flexibility.

Time to focus on the "nice-to-haves." For years, e-tailers focused on basics such as zoom functionality or on-site search tools or even site analytics. The majority have now mastered these "must-have" tools and are now making forays into the next tier of products that employ more quantitative approaches, and personalization is one of these. In the past, companies matched product cross-sells on their sites manually. In fact, a Shop.org survey of nearly 200 online retailers executed by Forrester found that 77 percent of retailers executed cross-sells by hand. Thirty-seven percent of retailers, however, say that they will focus on automated product recommendations in 2008.

The Current Landscape
Next, the report does a good job of providing an overview of the current e-commerce personalization industry, which is complex due to the many different ways it can be accomplished. For instance, while some companies claim to simply help create cross-sells, others promise to make a homepage more effective. According to the study, despite the nuanced differences in all their approaches, there are "four key buckets" that e-commerce personalization tools fall into as outlined here in the report:

Versioning tools. These tools typically personalize an experience by first defining segments of consumers and then serving up different iterations of key pages of Web sites (e.g., a homepage, checkout page or offer page). An example of such an execution would be showcasing different versions of a homepage to different visitors (e.g., new versus repeat) or different offers to different segments of consumers. In some unique situations, the data that informs the outputs can also be used across channels to create unique e-mail programs or even differentiated print campaigns for individual customers. As a result of their approach, these programs typically require extensive creative resources to support the various "versions" of an optimization campaign. For companies that want to slowly test what works first or want to carefully control their messaging, these tools can be extremely effective.

Simple cross-sells. These tools take implicit and sometimes explicit data and simply place what they believe to be the most relevant "adjacencies" in a predefined box on a Web page. These are often low-complexity, inexpensive, easy-to-integrate and simple solutions that help to automate the tedious processes of Web site merchandising or cross-selling. Small to midsize e-tailers typically are the most active customers of these tools, and companies such as Avail Intelligence, Baynote, CleverSet and Loomia are solid providers of such solutions.

Advanced cross-sells. These tools incorporate all of the features of simple cross-sells but also have the capability to push suggestions to other parts of a site (e.g., a homepage or outgoing e-mail programs). Advanced cross-sell solutions run the gamut from souped-up single-cross-sell solutions that can operate seamlessly in different areas of a Web site to more sophisticated solutions that create completely different navigation experiences for different customers. The key element that distinguishes advanced cross-sells is that they take outputs and feature them dynamically in a manner that is more than just "a box on a page."

Interactive filtering solutions. Given the vast assortment of products available online, consumers are often overwhelmed by the process of finding an appropriate match for their needs. Interactive filtering tools ask consumers for specific inputs, usually by posing a series of questions and then matching responses based on their preferences. The key factor that differentiates these tools from the other e-commerce personalization tools is that consumers essentially "raise their hand" and say what sort of information they want, and companies work to provide specific data or products that meets those needs. Companies such as Zafu.com and Karmaloop.com employ interactive filtering tools particularly well.

How to Find the Right Fit
The report goes on to match which types of Web shops would perform best with what personalization tools. If you have lots of resources and a budget to dedicate to personalization engines, versioning tools and advanced cross-sell tools are recommended; if you have an extremely broad and complex inventory of products, simple cross-sell tools, advanced cross-sell and interactive filtering are recommended; and if you have the need to have close control/input of the content at your site, versioning tools, advanced cross-sell and interactive filtering models are best.

So once you're ready to choose a vendor, given the complexity of the market, how do you go about it? This excerpt from the report provides the critical questions to ask:

How much data is gathered and from where? This is perhaps the most important question to ask a personalization tool company, because one of the biggest stumbling blocks of e-commerce optimization is a concept called the "cold start," which essentially means that there is not enough data to provide meaningful recommendations.

In this case, regardless of the sophistication of an algorithm or the number of Ph.D.s who crafted it, sparse data sets will yield poor recommendations, which not only creates a poor customer experience but also does little to drive sales. Companies such as ChoiceStream are able to address this issue by creating entire taxonomies of associations for their clients. Aggregate Knowledge drops third-party cookies onto its network of sites and gathers vast quantities of data throughout the Web that inform recommendations.

How sophisticated is the reporting? Given that lifts in sales can be very subtle and are frequently associated with certain key pages, it is critical to understand how personalization tools interact with conversion. Site analytics and Web site tagging, while helpful, are generally insufficient to gauge the entire effectiveness of a personalization tool. Tools by vendors such as Certona have the capability to drill down their reports to an item level, which can be critical to providing insight into what specifically is working (or not).

How quickly can it be changed/adjusted? One of the downfalls of the early engines was the "black box" or the relative lack of mutability around the formulas. While the "black box" is virtually nonexistent today, alterations to an algorithm are typically made in one of two ways: either by the client company or through a client services function provided by the vendor.

How many clients does a vendor have? Given the relative youth of so many of the e-commerce personalization tools, any company with experience in a given vertical or industry will likely have an advantage over other competitors. Why? The company will probably have already addressed the complex nuances of a particular industry, which means less algorithm tweaking after deployment. Coremetrics and CleverSet are two examples that are heavily focused on the retail sector, while companies such as TouchClarity actually grew from a background in the financial services vertical. Others, such as Aggregate Knowledge and Baynote, have experience working with media and content providers, in addition to focusing on retail. ChoiceStream has perhaps the industry's deepest experience with media companies but is also gaining traction in other sectors within retail, particularly with heavy-traffic, SKU-intensive sites.

How well-capitalized are these companies? The influx of funding into the personalization tool space has already affected the landscape. Acxiom's purchase of Kefta and Omniture's acquisition of TouchClarity make Kefta and TouchClarity more likely to be upsells to existing Acxiom and TouchClarity clients and may affect their future road maps and commitments to clients. Likewise, the relatively rich capitalization from venture capitalists of firms such as ChoiceStream and Aggregate Knowledge puts pressure on the sales processes of less capitalized competitors.

Is the tool a stand-alone tool? As mentioned above, some of the personalization tools sell only recommendation engines. Others, such as Endeca or Coremetrics, sell on-site search or site analytics first and optimization products as incremental (and sometimes separate) features. While it can often be easier to just manage a single vendor, the risk associated with an all-in-one solution is that it is less likely to be "best-in-class," since development efforts are primarily focused on flagship rather than ancillary products.

Are you comfortable with third-party cookies? Some companies rely on third-party cookies as a means of gathering incremental data. This means that some key elements of information — such as where, when, and how consumers click through a Web site — are shared, albeit anonymously, in a larger pool of data to unearth consumer behavior and reactions to different types of content across the Web. Companies uncomfortable with this approach should carefully qualify such companies to evaluate if a relationship make sense. For companies reluctant to pool their data, partners using third-party cookies may not make sense, but for those businesses bold enough to be part of a data consortium, the results can be extremely rewarding.
Evolution of Personalization

Finally, Mulpuru provides some insight on what to look to in the future of personalization. She predicts there will be a shake-out in the industry, with similar companies merging while others are pushed to the margins, as well as, with any luck, simplified pricing.


"The land grab for clients among the numerous vendors in the space has resulted in a dizzying array of pricing structures ranging from revenue shares to price-per-click models to flat fees to equity investment opportunities," she says. "As in the case of most other e-commerce tools such as rich media tools or on-site search, e-commerce personalization tools vendors will be wise to adopt a multi-year, flat-fee model with some variation based on usage of the tool. This will likely be the natural course of action once the tools are established as 'must-haves.'"

Michelle Megna is managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.

Doing Business in Virtual Worlds

By Kamales Lardi-Nadarajan

This step-by-step approach helps companies make an informed decision on whether or not to establish a presence in virtual environments.

Synthetic worlds are big news these days, with visitors to these so-called virtual environments coming from a wide range of backgrounds—including presidential candidates and movie stars. In addition, numerous large and midsize companies have explored synthetic worlds, though many eventually abandoned them.

Synthetic worlds are computer-based simulated environments that allow multiple users to inhabit and interact with each other through two- or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids and other forms, known as avatars. These virtual environments resemble the real world, with rules such as gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions and communication.

Though more than 50 individual synthetic worlds exist, according to VirtualWorldNews.com, a social virtual environment called Second Life has gained a lot of attention during the past year. Many people believe synthetic worlds are elaborate games, but there is real business going on in Second Life. Its service provider, New Business Horizons, counts scores of businesses and retailers, such as Coca-Cola and Sears, that have set up virtual stores to market products and test prototypes. And INSEAD, an international business school with real-world classes in France and Singapore, has built a virtual campus and classrooms in Second Life to supplement in-person learning.

A growing number of companies use synthetic worlds to connect with customers or interact with employees, thereby significantly reducing business travel time and expenses. At Deloitte Consulting, for example, we used this environment to host our 2007 Global Excellence Awards ceremony, allowing employees from around the world to “attend” the event.

More recently, Second Life covered the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It provided virtual interviews and discussion forums with key attendees.

Understanding the Virtual Market

Skeptics may find it hard to understand all the fuss about virtual environments, especially when they find large deserted areas in synthetic worlds such as Second Life. For the most part, these areas were set up by corporations that used them for a one-time media blitz and then abandoned them. This short-term view has resulted in what media critic Mark Glaser characterizes as a hype-and-backlash cycle, which has cast doubt over the potential business value of synthetic worlds.

The phenomenon is reminiscent of the dot-com era of the late 1990s, when a large number of Internet-

based companies were formed after the explosive popularity of the Internet. These enterprises dismissed standard business models and focused on the common goal of “getting big fast.”

Unfortunately, thousands of these startups failed, burning through their venture capital—often without ever making a net profit. However, some companies did make it through the dot-bomb, including Amazon, which differentiated itself through a business model that was tailored to suit the new market environment.

Learning from the dot-com experience, some enterprises have identified a key factor that’s necessary to successfully establish a virtual presence, whether for marketing purposes or commercial gain: Develop a strategy specifically suited to consumers of this new environment. In order to do that, companies must first understand the virtual market and its users.

Though surrounded by controversy, virtual environments such as Second Life can have a huge impact by quickly redefining personal and business interactions. In fact, the emerging social computing networks—online communities of people who share interests and activities—are predicted to redefine customer relationship management and business relationships within the next five years. This trend is gradually moving toward immersive 3-D environments, where there has been a tremendous increase in the number of synthetic world users. Virtual world consultancy K Zero estimates that synthetic worlds have registered close to 174 million users.

Some companies have developed innovative ways to integrate synthetic world technologies into their business model, effectively generating value for their business. In December, for example, Luxembourg hosted its first virtual job fair, bringing together professionals from 45 countries worldwide.

The Working Worlds fair, hosted in Second Life, welcomed 2,000 visitors who conducted more than 300 job interviews, with more than 50 of the candidates invited to Luxembourg for face-to-face meetings, according to GAX Technologies, the IT services firm that organized the event. Luxembourg, which faces significant recruitment difficulties due to an insufficient number of job candidates, has used this method to open the recruitment market internationally—with no travel expenses and low operating costs.

Communicating With Customers

In the last year, executives in many companies have had to decide whether to venture into virtual environments, either for business or marketing reasons. It’s not an easy decision, as media reports of enterprises that have abandoned their virtual businesses have cast doubt on the value and potential of synthetic worlds, even though there have been consistent increases in the number of registered users.

Despite getting some negative press, synthetic worlds are starting to change the way companies communicate with their customer groups. Over time, online synthetic worlds will play an increasingly vital role in business-to-consumer relationships, building customer loyalty through time and commitment.

Within the next five years, synthetic worlds will dominate and drive brand building in major companies.

That will give a competitive edge to enterprises already established in these interactive environments. When deciding whether to enter the virtual environment, companies should take an experimental approach, focusing on long-term added value.

Unfortunately, many companies view new or emerging technologies as a way to cut costs, forgetting the added value of innovation and new market development. “New ideas don’t drop from the sky, but are developed through an analytical experimental process,” wrote Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke, an authority on the management of technology and product innovation, in a February 2001 Harvard Business Review article. “The process should not only identify several new ideas, but also help narrow the number of ideas and pursue the most viable option for experimentation.”

Realizing the challenge executives f