I have tried the old fashioned methods of web rings and I have gone through all of the can't miss super affiliate long sales letter "Systems" for building links and page rank and ultimately traffic and I know there are very few easy or free ways to build up traffic to a site besides old fashioned content generation (some say free - I say valuable) and a well placed and yes - monetized link building plan.

Links are what makes the Internet work, and links are what make your website grow.

There are many ways to collect links to your sites, some easy, some not so easy.

• Beg for links from everyone you know (how long is that list? people you know with ranked websites that are relevant to your own website?)
• Cruise the Internet chat rooms and discussion boards, posting messages and creating links back with your signature in these posts (Most likely marked No Follow by the discussion board webmaster)
• Offer a link exchange - Ok if you know the other website or blog owner, but not usually too effective with ranked sites with any real Google Juice and Google will actually deduct from your page rank score if you have too many reciprocal links on your site. One way links are best for you.
• Join a Web Link Echange Ring - alright, these have been around since Moby Dick was a minnow - some swear by them but I have heard that Google really frowns upon collecting links for your site this way, and if Google does not like it, I don't do it.
• - Sometimes this can get you in trouble, unless it is done right. and to do it right you need to have a strategy and you should know more than what is promoted in link exchange groups.
• - Offers education in the form of a free guide to link buying which explains more than just why you should buy your links through Text Link Ads. I have read it and I was impressed with the amount of real education included in this guide which is offered with for trying the service.

Excerpt from the Link Buying Guide

Buying links through a service like is not all that expensive when you consider the time you will not have to waste on building these links through other means. Do yourself a favor and check out this method of link building, it could just increase your sales and the effects of building up page rank are long term.

Internet Business and Internet Marketing, it all sounds so interesting and easy...

Get an idea, buy a domain name, build a website and the money flows...

Right?

Maybe...

If the idea is right, the research is sound, the website is optimized and the effort is complete. Building an Internet business is no less difficult than starting a traditional brick and mortar retail or wholesale business.

Don't let anyone tell you different!

Lets look at the second step most people take when entering the Internet business world - Buying a Domain Name.

Domain Names - How Much Are They Worth?

There is a large market revolving around the simple Internet domain name. A commodity usually purchased from a domain name registrar like Godaddy or Register.com for about $9.99 can, if the name is valuable, be resold for hundreds or even millions of dollars.

The following excerpt is from Wikipedia: In an excellent article describing Domain Names:

Domain aftermarket prices and trends

Domain name sales occurring in the aftermarket are frequently submitted to the DN journal. The sales are listed weekly and include the top aftermarket resellers which include but are not limited to Sedo, Traffic (auctions), Afternic, NameJet, Moniker and private sales.

To date, and according to Guinness World Records and MSNBC, the most expensive domain name sales on record as of 2004 were:

• Business.com for $7.5 million in December 1999
• AsSeenOnTv.com for $5.1 million in January 2000
• Altavista.com for $3.3 million in August 1998
• Wine.com for $2.9 million in September 1999
• CreditCards.com for $2.75 million in July 2004
• Autos.com for $2.2 million in December 1999

The week ending January 27, 2008, DNJournal reported that CNN, a cable news channel purchased iReport.com for $750,000. The high price for iReport.com, as in "I Report," was because it was branded by CNN as CNN's news crowdsourcing prior to the purchase of the domain name. Likewise, AltaVista was branded as a search engine prior to the high purchase price of the domain name.

Big Dollars = Big Opportunity - for some...

These factual reports of actual domain resales has opened an opportunity for less than scrupulous domain name aftermarket brokers. These individuals promote the resale of domains which may appear to be quite valuable to uninformed or new Internet business entrepreneurs. The following information is an example of just one of those offers that could have lead an unsuspecting budding Internet entrepreneur astray.

The following is an actual unsolicited email I recently received offering me an amazing opportunity to purchase a domain name.

(details of the sender (spammer) have been omitted)

Hello, (My Name inserted here)

I recently found your site online and thought I would contact you. I am a Domain Broker and am currently offering the domain ebayBoatAuction.com for sale. The price for this domain is $400 and if you have an interest in acquiring it please let me know. I can be reached at this email address or at xxx 822-xxxx.

My Reply to this Domain Broker may have been a bit more involved than he expected.

I approached the response in a manner that assumed this person had just made an honest mistake and that he was uninformed or ignorant of the laws he had already broken or proposed breaking...

Dear Sir,

Since any domain that has the word "ebay" in it will eventually receive a cease and desist order from eBay, Inc. if it is used as an active URL, I would not be interested in your offer to sell a domain with the word eBay within. Please note the following information taken directly from the eBay website: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-ebayipuse.html

While it has become very popular to register, use and sell domain names (including on eBay), it generally is not permissible to own, sell or use a domain name, which contains a trademark owned by another person or company. Visit the Use of eBay Names, Logos, Screenshots or Domain Names page for more information about registering domain names similar to the eBay name.

Certain uses of domain names may also subject the owner to additional penalties. Congress passed a statute called the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999, which provides for penalties of up to $100,000 against persons who in bad faith and without authorization, use, sell, or offer for sale a domain name that infringes another's trademark. Click here for more information on trademark law.

I suggest that if you have multiple domains with the word eBay or ebay anywhere within, that you stop any attempts at brokering them for a profit of any kind. You could be exposing yourself to litigation or worse, if you sell these domains. Only eBay inc can register and/or use domains with their trademark and they are notoriously happy to pursue even the smallest cases with vigor.

Good Luck in your brokering business, I also suggest that you peruse the Cann Spam act to determine if the emails you are sending out with commercial offers to parties that have never done business with you in the past are in fact legal. This too could be an exposure you are not advised to accept.

Respectfully,

Scott Pooler

CEO iBusinessLogic Corporation

USA Support - MerchantRun-GlobalLink

http://iBusinessLogic.com

http://merchantrun-globallink.com

12525 Walsingham Rd

Largo, Florida 33774

727-596-6900

Skype: allbusinessauctions

Twitter: http://twitter.com/scott_pooler

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottpooler

Beach-Host is a division of iBusinessLogic Corporation http://beach-host.com Get Your Site Now!

Do I really think this individual had no idea that he was offering a domain name that could never be legally used?

Well, I would like to think so, but in this world we can almost always be sure that people will take advantage of the unsuspecting. I am pretty confident that if I had spent $400 of my hard earned cash, hoping to make a business out of eBayBoatAuction.com, I would have been sorely disappointed. I honestly doubt this Domain Broker would have gladly refunded my money. I mean, that is a pretty good profit on a $9.99 investment, if even if selling a trademarked name is illegal, right?

Caveat Emptor

Buyer beware indeed...

There are millions of opportunities in what is still the infancy of Internet business, so many in fact that short cuts are not necessary. Hard work, ingenuity, previous experience, research, drive and skill will bring you to the top.

Please do not fall for unscrupulous offers or get rich quick schemes that do not allow your own inner passion to become a success to blossom. You will be a success only if you make it so, no one can do it for you.

While mentors and consultants or developers like myself can make the process less painful and save untold steps along the way... It is the entrepreneur who drives the ship and makes the business a success, not some quick scheme, offer or box of DVD's or seemingly can't miss domain name.

This one would have missed before it had ever gotten started, or worse... Imagine investing in a website, building it on a trademarked domain, investing hundreds of hours and possibly thousands of dollars, only to find eBay knocking on your door with a cease and decist order, or the justice department with a subpoena?

I am so lucky...

From the very first day of my involvement within the eCommerce world, the holy grail of selling online included offering product on multiple venues yet managing that inventory from one central location or software package. Personally I have worked towards that goal for several years, working with developers and designers who had greater resources than my own and trying to convince them of the need for an entry level multi- channel solution. It's always nice to know you had the right idea all along, even if someone else implements it before you do.

What the company has to say about it's new eCommerce solution:

The Vendio Platform is a complete eCommerce solution that includes a robust, feature-rich online store as well as item, order and customer management – all for free. It doesn’t matter whether a merchant sells 10 or 10,000 items in their Vendio store – they pay no web hosting fees, imaging hosting fees, listing fees or success fees. There is no catch. No gimmicks.

Vendio doesn’t even require a credit card to sign up for the Platform.

Features of the Vendio Platform with free online store:

• Fast and easy setup: Be up and running in minutes. Create your items and store without any development work or technical knowledge.
• Customized look-and-feel: Customize your store with your logo, custom categories, featured items, external links and more. You have complete control when you use our easy-to-use Store Builder to see exactly how your store will look as you build it.
• Professional designs: Dozens of free templates to choose from to make your store stand out.
• Simplified sales: All customers, items, and orders managed from one location. No need to worry about tracking transactions across different channels - it's all in one spot.
• SEO & Analytics: Add meta keywords and descriptions quickly and easily in order to help buyers find your store via search engines. Google Analytics integration assists you in monitoring and understanding your store traffic.
• Custom URL: Get a free Vendio domain or create your own custom domain name to keep your brand intact.
• Item Search: Buyers can search both your item titles and descriptions.
• Widget: Promote items anywhere online such as your website or blog with a cool widget that shows off your items.

Again, Vendio offers all these store features as well as the sales management, for free.  Just because the Vendio store is free, doesn’t mean that it’s subpar to existing paid store offerings on the market such a Pro Store or a Yahoo Store.  Here is a helpful feature matrix that differentiates the Vendio store from just some of its competitors.

What’s most unique and powerful about the Vendio Platform is that all items uploaded into the Platform are automatically placed in the store, immediately available for sale.

If a merchant wants to reach more buyers in places where they shop, such as eBay, Amazon or Google, then they can easily extend the Platform to multiple marketplaces for a small monthly fee plus percentage of sales. Extending the Platform means that the merchant uses just one set of inventory details for as many marketplaces as they’d like to sell on – all managed from one, single interface. This results in countless saved hours and inventory management control mix-ups.

Screenshots from the Vendio Platform Website and from the Application itself:

[Show as slideshow]

The pricing plan is here: Vendio Pricing Page

For merchants who are interested in extending the Vendio Platform to marketplaces, Vendio is currently offering a 60 Day Trial. Along with the trial comes a great bonus – Vendio is waiving its Amazon fees for the rest of 2009.

What "Others" are saying - Robert Scoble interview with the Vendio Founders

My Take on the Vendio Platform eCommerce /software solution:

Scott's Take

Vendio has a long history as a third party software and applications developer and is a familiar company to eBay sellers.  The work that has obviously gone into this multi-channel solution is very apparent and indicates a long standing understanding about how merchants, especially eBay merchants, work to get product online.

Usability: I give it a 8 on a scale of 10

Functionality: I say 9 on a scale of 10

Intimidation Factor: 3 on a scale of 10

The Vendio platform may indeed be the light at the end of a long tunnel for many eBay merchants, especially if they have not yet expanded beyond eBay to sell on other channels or on their own web store.

If you are an experienced eBay seller, this Vendio Platform solution will give you the confidence to go forth and find new markets, to boldly go into the ecommerce world - feet first, while knowing that you will have familiar surroundings and procedures available at all times.  No need to leave the comfortable blanket that is eBay or the traffic the megasite produces, yet with the Vendio Platform tools, new markets await that may help you to see beyond the eBay safety net. Expanding into multi-channel ecommerce is the next logical step for any eBay merchant.

The software has been extremely well thought out, it is apparent that years of development work went into this package. And the prior experience with an eBay focused offering shows through here.

Importing existing eBay listings is an easy proceedure and once complete all can be converted to free web store listings.

Importing eBay Listings

The control panel is well laid out and the instructions are comprehensive as can be seen by reviewing this extensive create listings PDF found in the help section. Or you can read it here before you sign up for your free account.

Keep in mind this is just one of the 23 extensive help manuals available for download on the site:

Cons:

While the platform has had a great deal of sweat equity poured into it prior to launch in March of 2009, this does not mean that the new platform is completely finished.

One example of need for improvement comes when users begin to list a new item. The list new item screen (which is a one page piece of organized well thought out web engineering) unfortunately does not have an integrated image upload function.  A user must first go to Images -> upload images and then create a folder to then upload images one at a time to the site. Then come back to create a new item and choose the folder where the images reside to include those images in a new listing.  Obviously this process needs to be refined to allow for a faster method of uploading image files directly from the listing form.  I contacted my Vendio contacts about this issue to find out if there were any way to speed up the process?  I had an answer back within 1/2 hour - the entire image upload process is being re-worked and should be complete in a few weeks.

It seems that not only does this company listen to their users, but they also act on the needs of the users to improve the product.

Overall Impression: I say give Vendio a try, the ecommerce webstore is free forever and with an eBay import you can easily see how the system works for you.  Having the ability to test products and control inventory on Amazon and eBay as well as in other search driven marketing and a stand alone ecommerce store from one control panel is the ideal solution that I have been looking for ages.  Vendio as a company has been working with eBay sellers for a long time and they know the business.  One does need to keep in mind that optional features incur monthly charges but the base online webstore is completely free.  Why not give it a test drive?

Additional Tid Bit: One feature that Vendio does not tout regarding this free hosted webstore that I find most intriguing is that the eCommerce webstore package can be added to any existing domain.  In other words if you have a business with an existing brochure style website and you would like to add an ecommerce shopping cart to that site without all the expense or hassel of starting over from scratch, give Vendio a hard look.  By following a few simple instructions and simply creating a folder on your server with a single FTP upload a small piece of code your website can almost instantly become and eCommerce website.  http://mywebsite.com becomes http://mywebsite.com/store with a fully functional ecommerce shopping cart that is secure and can accept multiple forms of payment. How cool is that?  And it is Free!

Here is a table of existing Vendio Webstores for your review:

The Bonanzle Blog Team has been born!

What is a Blog Team, you ask?

It is a term we just dreamed up for the enthusiastic members of

Are You a Member?

Bonanzle who want to promote both the site and their own Bonanzle items in their Bonanzle Booths.

Many Bonanzle sellers have jumped at the chance to promote the site around the Internet in whatever spare time they happen to have. These members are part of the Bonanzle Action Team, they post comments and links on friendly blogs and discussion boards all over the Internet.

We thought, why not take some of that time and devote it to your own website?  But many Bonanzle sellers do not have websites, what to do?

iBusinessLogic.com created a special website development deal for Bonanzle members.  The idea is to create multiple off Bonanzle websites with blog capabilities and feed those sites with the stock the Bonanzle members already have in their individual Bonanzle Booths.  In essence, each Bonanzle seller who becomes a Bonanzle Blog Team member will concentrate on creating content about what what they know, what they sell, what they are experts about in thier own space on the Internet.  This content generation will draw in traffic looking for each persons individual content. That traffic will then be funneled back to Bonanzle through each Blog Team members Bonanzle Booth.

Sounds simple, and it is...

Those who choose to invest in their business will reap the highest rewards, but overall every seller on Bonanzle will benefit from the increased traffic and page rank all of these outside websites will transfer to the main site. We have Two New members just today and I will personally help them set up their new websites and blogs.

Why not check out the website blog offer made to Bonanzle members either o the BusinessLogic.com/blog or over at Bonanzle in the Services Discussion Forum (if you are a member).

Below is an example of the Bonanzle product feed we would insert in these off Bonanzle  - member websites. This "feed" consists of live items in our own Bonanzle Booth. Click on any item and you will be taken directly to our booth where the transaction can be completed if you choose to purchase one of these items.

Bonanzle is a very efficient and easy shopping cart system with features which would be very hard to duplicate at such a low cost.  From social marketing features, easy item insertion, free photo hosting, and multiple methods of payment (Google Checkout or PayPal or Both, plus all forms of Paper payments).  Bonanzle in effect is a low cost, high efficiency selling machine which simply needs a traffic feed.

We think each booth owner can create that traffic with good content!

Bonanzle Booth Feed:

Learning about online sales is a ever more involved and challenging task. Where to go, what to read, who to listen to and the ever important How much does it cost?

We are all familiar with the numerous seminars and trade shows held around the country. Some with low registration fees and others with seemingly outrageous up front attendance fees which eliminate all but the most serious attendees. Add other expenses to the registration costs like hotel, airfare, gasoline, food and the costs of attending even the most modest of seminars begin to intimidate would be Internet marketers.

What to do, if you want to learn, but you don't want to spend?

Well, how about a free 3 day conference which provides experts from around the world - For Free?

Thats right - Completely Free The Product Sellers Seminar Sponsored by: Michele Waters of Product Sellers Talk Radio

• No Registration Costs
• No Travel Costs
• No Hotel Costs
• No Bad Hotel Food

Attending an online seminar or "Webinar" can significantly increase your knowledge base and save wallet space at the same time. Learning from the best in the business (OK I snuck in the speakers list somehow) is the very best way to start or improve your business.

It's easy and free, what else do you need to know?

Oh - who will you hear?

Online learning is the wave of the future and small business people should take advantage of this new way to educate themselves. Time is always an issue... Take some time to check out these great speakers at this weeks free Product Sellers Seminar!

All times Central

Remember to sign up on the notification list here at http://www.productsellersseminar.com/ so you will receive the updates and the web conference room details…as the dates are approaching

Annies Costumes is a star client of iBusinessLogic.com and a very innovative client at that!  In addition to the introduction of our custom designed eBay Store front powered by Frooition and redesgning the Annie's Costumes website, they also created this fantastic You Tube video showcasing the best costumes of 2008: Annies Costumes 2008

eBay Partner Network Tips from The Source

The eBay Partner Network is the new affiliate manager of eBay. And the eBay Partner Network blog is up and running providing eBay network affiliates with timely information about how to optimize their affiliate sites and drive quality traffic to eBay.

Apparently eBay has determined that a great deal of the traffic which was derived from Commission Junction affiliates prior to the switch to the eBay Partner network was of low quality. To eBay this is an issue because if a buyer is driven to the site from a link or a page totally unrelated to eBay or any product on eBay to which the buyer had no intention or interest in when they clicked an eBay affiliate link. Obviously people who follow links such as those described above will not be engaged or interested in buying anything and simply click back off the site.

We have all seen and been the unwitting victim of these links on sites which are simply built to scrape traffic and send it to wherever the site owner thinks he/she could make the most affiliate commission. eBay is very interested in making sure there sites are no longer part of their affiliate network.

eBay wants more product oriented informational sites within the eBay Partner Network. Sites with up to date content related to the products promoted via affiliate links.

One such site (full disclosure the site is designed by iBusinessLogic.com) which we believe provides the kind of quality traffic generation eBay is looking for.

FavoriteTeamwear.com is a NASCAR focused website blog which provides unique and interesting content related to the sport and offers merchandise and apparel from several sources including eBay.

The web visitors to FavoriteTeamwear.com are not tricked into following links to merchandise, when they choose to follow a product link it is very obvious the item they are viewing is for sale. The site also provides more than a simple place for people to find NASCAR or Sprint Cup merchandise. Keith Bloemendaal writes topical and interesting articles about the sport and current events relating to NASCAR. This content is what brings viewers and the content is the primary focus of the site. This is what we believe the eBay Partner Network is looking for in its affiliates.

For more information about what eBay expects from its affiliates in the new era of the eBay Partner Network read the latest post on their blog below, or drop on over to the eBay Partner Network blog

Tips for Sending Engaged Buyer Traffic to eBay Sites

September 5th, 2008

As many of you are aware, last week we made the decision to expire a small
number of affiliates from eBay Partner Network, because the traffic they were
sending to eBay was in the lowest tier of the program for quality and did not
generate enough engagement with the site. We had a lot of dialogue with our
current affiliates on our discussion boards after the action, so wanted to use
this as an opportunity to further open our lines of communication moving
forward.

Our philosophical approach at eBay Partner Network is to pay generous
commissions for quality traffic that drives incremental buying activity on eBay,
i.e., purchases that occurred due to the affiliate’s actions. Thus, we’ve
looked closely at how engaged the traffic is from our affiliates and in the
interest of eBay’s sellers and the overall health of the program, we made the
decision to expire a small number of affiliates who were driving the least
engaged traffic. Moving forward, should we notice that any affiliate is driving
low quality traffic according to our metrics, our goal is to provide help in
improving the affiliate’s site(s) before taking any action such as
expiration.

In the interest of helping you maximize the impact of the traffic you drive
to eBay, and enjoying in the financial benefits, we also wanted to re-post some
of the tips from our board posts which some folks found to be very helpful.

What does “engagement” mean?

“Engagement” is how we look at a user’s experience on eBay once directed via
an affiliate link. Among other metrics, we look at the time that users spend on
eBay, the number of pages that they view, and their bidding and buying activity
after coming through an affiliate link. For example, a user who visits eBay and
then leaves the site immediately is not “engaged”, whereas a user who comes and
browses the site and places a bid or makes a purchase is highly “engaged.”

Can affiliates affect engagement and conversion?

Definitely and there can be a big difference in performance on these metrics
between affiliates. To illustrate the point with an extreme example, a site that
helps potential buyers find and research stereo receivers and then points them
to great deals on eBay will drive more engaged buyers with better conversion
rates than an eBay banner on a ringtone site. Also, a user is far more likely
to be engaged if they knew prior to the click that they were going to be driven
to eBay.

How can affiliates improve engagement from their sites?

Many of you are already using these techniques and others, but for those who
may not be, here are some tips to improve engagement.

• Maximize the amount of unique content to your site. Create commerce-oriented
  content for your site that engages the user in the shopping experience.
  Conversely, avoid putting eBay affiliate ads on pages that have little to do
  with shopping – e.g. ringtone sites, non-commerce oriented social network sites,
  e-mail services, etc. Also, sites that do little other than offer links to
  redirect to eBay generally don’t perform well and remember to always make it
  clear on the affiliate links that they will be redirected to eBay to shop

• Use more targeted creatives and tools. If all you have is a simple text link
  to eBay or a static eBay banner ad on your site, consider using one of our flash
  creatives. Use what you know about your users and your content, so consider
  using our banners targeted to specific demographics (e.g. male vs. female) or
  categories. Also, consider using our Editor Kit and eBay To Go (US only)
  widgets, which can be customized to show specific eBay listings for a given
  category or keyword right on your page.

• Integrate eBay links within your content. Sites that find a way to work eBay
  advertising into the content, rather than just as a simple ad at a top, side, or
  bottom of a page, tend to perform better.

• Optimize your landing pages. Use what you know about your users to help them
  find what they want on eBay. If your site is about tennis rackets, avoid landing
  your users on the eBay homepage, and instead send them to a search results page
  on eBay for targeted tennis queries.

• Use our geotargeting functionality. Sending a visitor on your site who is
  from the UK to ebay.co.uk (our British site) rather than ebay.com (our US site),
  will significantly improve conversion rates and engagement. You can select this
  option when you’re generating eBay links in the “tools” tab.

• >Avoid simply incentivizing visits to eBay or registration with eBay –If you
  are going to give your users cash back or points, tie those rewards to actual
  valid purchases on eBay. If you incentivize visits or sign up, a user’s primary
  motivation is typically not browsing or purchasing from eBay, so their value to
  us is low.

How can affiliates test & improve their performance?

• Set up specific campaigns to test out any new sites, links, content, etc.,
  and ideally, test these new approaches in smaller volumes than your overall
  traffic. This way you will be able to evaluate the performance of each new
  campaign separately, ramp up the ones that perform the best, and prune the ones
  that don’t perform.

• Leverage the custom ID reports to further segment your testing. In an
  upcoming release, additional category reporting will be made available that will
  help you identify at campaign, tool, and program levels the categories whose
  traffic is most likely to convert into sales, which will help you further
  optimize your content and affiliate links.

Lastly, as we have set high standards for the program, we are also taking
this into account as we screen new registrations. We are committed to growing
the number of quality affiliates in the program, and we want to make sure our
newest partners can meet those expectations. As a result going forward we are
paying close attention to all aspects of applications – especially the
descriptions of affiliates’ business models and URLs that affiliates are
planning on sending traffic from. If you are interested in applying, please
keep this in mind as you fill out your application.

We hope you find this communication helpful and wanted to thank you for your
work in driving great traffic to eBay. We remain committed to working with you
to continue to build and strengthen eBay Partner Network.

The eBay Partner Network Team

Blog Design follow Up...

Last May I wrote an article here about a company by the name of Carolina Custom fences LLC and their Sales Manager Keith Bloemendaal

In the earlier article I described the process we set up for the development of a new site for Carolina Custom Fences, how we inspired keith Bloemendaal to start blogging on Wordpress.com simply to test his desire to keep up with a blogs and to see if he actually enjoyed the process. He Did!

As in any project, along the way we ran into delays and certain set backs. One of which was a big change at Carolina Custom Fences LLC. As it turns out, the changes brought with them large changes in our project and I am glad to say they were all for the best for everyone involved. The project received a new name and a new owner, and our relationship with Keith Bloemendaal became even stronger. Keith bought the website project from his former employer Carolina Custom Fences and started a new company with it - Raleigh Fence Contractors LLC.

All the delays from within Carolina Custom had allowed Keith to really see the power of blogging with his Wordpress.com blog. He had made contacts in the social network that is blogging and had made friends with other construction niche bloggers. So once he had ownership of the new site, Keith was ready to get it up and running as fast as possible.

We worked hard to accomodate Keith because I knew how important this new website would be for his new business. From the date Keith sent us the paperwork stating he owned the site outright to go-live as a working website took us just over 6 days. I am personally very proud of the work we did for Keith and Raleigh Fence Contractors LLC.

The new site had a completely new look and it was designed with a focus on what Keith wanted the site to do... Provide information for prospective fence customers in his niche market.

This is the result of our development work:

And as you can see from this screenshot of Google, Raleigh Fence
is doing well in organic search in a very competitive market. Using the
Keyword phrase "Raleigh Fence Contractor" one finds this one month old
site on the first page of Google in organic search. Phenomenal results
for any site and even though the keyword phrase is related to the site
URL the result is still worthy of praise.

Keith is very happy with his new site and has been singled out by other websites for having a very good clean and interesting small business website blog. We will be posting an article on our iBusinesslogic.com/blog site soon detailing the fantastic results of Keith's social marketing efforts.

By Now the World is aware that we run our blogs on Wordpress. We have tried the others, but there is just no denying the features and capabilities of Wordpress as a content publishing and management platform for the web.

Today we will share a feature Wordpress calls "shortcodes"... Yes, Wordpress offers shortcuts in code which make the process of creating interesting articles even easier, and they explain the entire process here:

What are the WordPress shortcodes?

What is a shortcode?

A shortcode is a WordPress-specific code that lets you do nifty things with very little effort. Shortcodes can embed files or create objects that would normally require lots of complicated, ugly code in just one line. Shortcode = shortcut.

What shortcodes does WordPress use?

[audio] converts a link to an mp3 file into an audio player. See full instructions here.

[caption] adds a caption to an image. See full instructions here.

[digg] embeds a voting button for your link on Digg. See full instructions here.

[flickr] embeds a Flickr video. See full instructions here.

[gallery] displays a thumbnail gallery of images attached to that post or page. See full instructions here.

[googlemaps] embeds Google Maps. See full instructions here.

[googlevideo] embeds a Google Video. See full instructions here.

[livevideo] embeds a video from LiveVideo. See full instructions here.

[odeo] embeds an Odeo audio file. See full instructions here.

[podtech] embeds audio or video from the PodTech Network. See full instructions here.

[polldaddy] embeds a PollDaddy poll(use without the space). See full instructions here.

[redlasso] embeds a video from Redlasso. See full instructions here.

[rockyou] embeds a slideshow from RockYou. See full instructions here.

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Arctic Spring Water of Tampa Bay, Florida selected iBusinessLogic.com to design the new Arctic Water website and blog.

The owner of Arctic Spring of Clearwater, Nick Chachula is very interested in the inherent power of content management websites and blogs. He was intrigued by the idea that he could reduce his overall Pay Per Click advertising budget by utilizing a website built upon blog technology.

Nick’s old website was built just 2 years ago but he found it very difficult to update and his webmaster was not always available to make changes. Nick is excited about the very real possibility that he can manage his own business website after a short training session with iBusinessLogic’s Scott Pooler.

“Adding content in the form of blog posts to any website will build up the page rank and therefore the organic search standing of that site” said Scott Pooler, CEO of iBusinessLogic.com of Largo, Florida. “We are pleased to be working with an established and reliable company like Arctic Spring”. When companies like this come to us for a new way to run their websites we are always happy to help!

The following is a screen shot of the first mock up of the new Arctic Spring water site. Changes will be made before it is officially launched but Nick Chachula is really excited by the fresh and clean look of the new site.

Read More Here: iBusinessLogic.com/Blog

See the completed site here:

Arctic Spring Water of Tampa Bay, Florida